Category: To Occupy my Time

Shrug and a return to the Laurel Uniform Project.

It’s getting really cold and I need to finish this shrug.  So here I go.  Look how much I took off the sleeves!  That would be the line sewn into the sleeve area.  Then I trimmed and bound.
 
Attaching binding on the edge of the sleeve.
 
And to the inside.  Matt’s out of town and I wasn’t in the mood for a self-capturing of the final product, so an official picture will come later.
 
And here we have a muslin of the Laurel Dress.
 
And here I am wearing it.  It’s too loose in the front, but guess what?  I’m going to sew it that way anyway.
 
The back looks good, but could be taken in a bit across the seat.  But guess what?  It’s getting sewn this way.

I’m ready to be done with the uniform project. Which isn’t really the best way to sew, but there you have it.

Big Trimet day.

Wanna come along?  Well, you missed the first part, because I didn’t think to take pictures.  Imagine the Lombard Transit center, where I picked up the #4 and rode it over to Vancouver street.  There, I disembarked and went to the Dishman Community Center to swim.  Finished there, I walked to MLK to grab the #6.  Here we can switch to photos.

Across the street from this stop for the #6, are two houses, both alike in dignity/ in fair Portland where we lay our scene.  They are also apparently owned by the same person, who painted them the same color.
 

Where I came from:  Dishman.
 
I disembarked at Burnside and MLK to switch to the #20.  I probably had enough time to walk up to the theater, but was hungry, and wanted to leave time for a lunch more substantial than popcorn.  While at this stop the gentleman waiting with me asked me what I took the picture of.  When I explained it was for my blog he asked, “Who reads it?”  I told him that friends did and his reply was “Oh” and he ceased talking to me.  This amused me.  I guess I wasn’t a famous enough blogger for him.
 
I went with Tapalaya for food and had a very good pulled pork sandwich with two sides:  collards with bacon and a black-eye pea salad.
 
My movie destination was right around the corner.
 
Waiting for the #20 again.  This was my longest wait of 20 minutes.  O! Sunday schedule, why must you thwart me!  Happily, my time was taken up by watching a disaffected youth cross Burnside, forcing cars to stop for him while he flipped them off.  He then stood behind a pole that was part of the building across the street and in short order a police cruiser pulled up, parked and talked with him then searched. him.  A second cruiser arrived to help with the search and a third cruiser showed up, searched him again and then took him away.  He didn’t seem to be opposed to the idea and I wondered what story I missed there.  Of note:  the first police officer was a man, but the other two were women.
 
The #20 deposited me a block from my work, where I ran a quick errand.
 
Then walked to the Yellow Line and had to wait another 10 minutes.

From the Yellow Line, I disembarked and walked the final four blocks to my home.  Thanks Trimet for ferrying me around.

Requiem: shirt and skirt

You wouldn’t know it by looking at me, but I have a great affinity for clothing.  Sometimes  I look at J.K. Rowling–she of the vast wealth–and think, “Were I suddenly to find myself in a position to not think about money, I would most likely look as good as she does.”  Not that it’s that easy, of course, but the money does help.  I could have a good hairdresser that didn’t just disappear, I could schedule Pilates sessions with Deanne, I could have someone else do the cooking, and I could hire someone to find me incredibly beautiful clothing that looked great on me.  Don’t get me wrong, I think I do okay clothes-wise, but my wardrobe is quite minimal and largely consists of second-hand goods, because that’s what the budget provides.

Which brings me to this shirt.  I found it in a consignment store (the spendy one I don’t go to anymore, partially because we’ve moved and it’s not in my normal trajectory of things and partially because the prices are a bit high) and loved it, both for the designer name and for the colors and the fit.  Alas, the fit is no good anymore so it needs to move on to brighten someone else’s day.  The material feels great.  Quality material makes such a difference.
 

I’ve rarely been the kind of girl that guys notice and comment on.  This is okay by me, as I place the random guy commenting on the random girl in the category of I have named: sexist things we are hopefully moving beyond as we slowly but steadily progress to a gender-neutral society. (A girl can dream.)  I can report that guys adored this skirt.  I have never had so many random comments (“nice skirt!”) as when I was wearing this.  It was bizarre, as it seemed to be no different than any other skirt I owned, none of which invited comment.  I told a friend of this strange phenomena and once she found herself walking behind me she understood and explained.  Apparently the two separate layers shift with the normal walking motion and make a rather mesmerizing spectacle.  Ah.

Good to know.  And since it doesn’t fit me anymore, someone else can enjoy the ogling.

Astounding things from Parade Magazine.

“With the former Miss Independent now officially Mrs. Blackstock…”  Why is it that we need to make a point of a woman not being independant when she marries?  I never hear this about men.
 
It’s a turkey?  No!  It’s a cake that looks like a Turkey!

I must confess that this genre of cakes pretending to be something else delights me, though I would never eat one.  My favorite check stand headline reading is the magazine First For Women which always has a  cover featuring a way to lose large amounts of weight in tiny amounts of time, plus some cake that looks like another object.  My favorite was the cake picnic basket complete with ants, but this “turkey” is totally in the running now.

Is this the kind of killing frost in which Wildfire was lost?

It’s been coooooooollllllllldddddd in Portland (getting all the way down to the high 20s)* so our frosts have been fierce.

Whenever there is a heavy frost I think of the Dave Barry column about the worst songs ever written, which thanks to the internet, is available here to read for yourself.  However, for those of you who are not going to click, I’ll just excerpt the Wildfire part:
Many readers are still very hostile toward the song “Wildfire,” in which singer Michael Murphy wails for what seems like 97 minutes about a lost pony. (As one voter put it: “Break a leg, Wildfire.”) Voter Steele Hinton particularly criticized the verse wherein there came a killing frost, which causes Wildfire to get lost. As Hinton points out: … ‘killing’ in ‘killing frost’ refers to your flowers and your garden vegetables, and when one is forecast you should cover your tomatoes … Nobody ever got lost in a killing frost who wouldn’t get lost in July as well.”

*And yes, people who live in places that actually experience cold, I KNOW that isn’t very cold.  But I’ve acclimated.

Baghdad Refurbished.


Before seeing a free showing of My Own Private Idaho, I heard the end of the lecture on the history of the Baghdad Theater.  I arrived for the lecture during the period when the Baghdad was going through a transformation to a “multiplex” which meant walling off the balcony for a separate theater and shoehorning a third theater, called the Back Door Theater, behind the main theater space.  All McMenamin’s movie screens show slide shows before their movies begin, and interspersed with the slides for the many McMenamin’s products are historic pictures.  I have been seeing the picture of the Back Door Theater for years and wondered about it.  Now I know.

This picture was a poster for a premiere that happened at the Baghdad:  They Live.  Among other things, this  forgettable movie had the involvement of the man who invented the propeller beanie.  Thus the explanation of the strange juxtaposition of these two pictures.

The history of the theater was quite interesting and I was sorry I didn’t prioritize listening to the entire lecture.

Awesome Thank You cards.

Some time ago, I did a favor for a friend and she grew concerned that we were not “even.”  This would be the same friend that made me the fabulous birthday card last year.
“Oh, I’m sure you will eventually do something for me to even things up,” I said, not at all concerned.  But within a week I had a nice stack of Thank You cards she made for me and which I have been sending to people since.  They always assume I made the cards, but card-making is not really a skill I put in play often.  When asked, I set them straight. 
And then I ran out of the cards.  So I mentioned to her that I would have to put myself in her debt again so I could get more cards.  And within a week I had a stack of Thank You cards that blew away the previous ones.  I love them so much!
She bought a bunch of doll clothes patterns and realized she would never actually sew any doll clothing.  So here they are repurposed for me.

 

  
This one is my favorite as I hate the word “panties” but love that doll panties have made their way to a thank you card.