I’m not gonna lie. It was a long six hours. Like any good project, we had to take a break and buy more supplies (our liquid nails had become solid.) But we did it!
My Ikea-planning helped. It was a matter of cutting along lines and matching labeled parts to other parts before we glued and screwed everything into place. At the time of this picture, I still needed to cut the hole out for the electrical outlet, but this is where we stopped to celebrate our win.
And here we are celebrating! We built a very strong platform. I feel as though I could tap dance on top if it with no trouble.
Also, notice how it’s a bit higher than the dryer is currently sitting. That’s fine and gives me a few more inches of maneuverability for litter box cleaning.
Some of the protesters at the Police Union building took a turn down Denver and did some burning and property destruction in the Kenton Downtown area. I went for a walk the next morning to take in the destruction.
I support protestors call for racial justice. I’m not a fan of property destruction. I think the anarchists are doing a great job painting all protestors as destructive which isn’t the case. But being anarchists, they are quite happy to destroy a movement for their own pleasure.
I was out in the seven o’clock hour and things had already been tidied.
This part of Denver Ave. has been cut off from car traffic so the businesses (many of which are restaurants) can have more room to sell things. This is a program that has been happening in commercial areas around Portland this summer. You can see how they make the stencils for the sidewalk chalk shapes that indicate walkways and then use the stencils to partition areas into rooms. I find this to be a very clever use of materials.
I think this might have been the part of town where the dumpster was set on fire. You can see some charred wood.
Here is a bit of stencil that wasn’t wholly consumed by flame.
This is another one was burned a little. You can see it in the lower-left corner.
Here’s a bit more melting.
I think Bart’s Barber Shop had already had their window smashed in. It wouldn’t have been boarded up so quickly. I think the graffiti is new. You can also see some other graffiti on the window over the logo and some old graffiti on the Kenton Lodge cornerstone.
I wanted to take these pictures because when people hear “riot” and “fire” and “property destruction” I think a lot of them picture rubble and complete decimation. As you can see here, there is property damage that will cost money and that sucks. But it’s not complete destruction that businesses need to rise, Phoenix-like out of the ashes.
Our top-of-the-line washer has pooped out just a few months after the one-year warranty expired. Maytag has agreed to cover the cost of parts and labor to fix it and the repair man pointed out that maybe moving the washer and dryer back into the closet would be better for the washer.
However, that move would make a problem for the dryer. The reason we moved the unit out of the closet was because it was hard to vent.
There is also the matter of the cats’ litter boxes. If we separate the unit and put the washer in the closet (thus getting rid of that multiple chained hoses situation) and the dryer on the ground in the not-closet, where will the cats’ litter boxes go?
The solution came to me while I was in a half-awake state on Friday morning and I spent a few hours sketching out the plan. We just needed to build a pedestal for the dryer to sit on, but one that was high enough for the cats’ litter boxes to fit under. Luckily, the manufacturer-created pedestals are ridiculously expensive and several people had made their own and put their building process online, so I had some guidance.
On Saturday morning, I went to buy the supplies. That part didn’t go smoothly because though I had measured the Honda Civic to ensure that plywood cut in half would fit into the back seat (it would!) I neglected to measure the opening to the back seat. It was not big enough for the plywood to fit, as I found when I went to load up the car. Thankfully Laurie and Burt have a truck and Matt went to borrow it.
After that, I came home and made this as close to an Ikea project as I could.
You can see my labels and marks. Everything is premeasured and we will tackle this tomorrow. Hopefully we can get the platform built in time to get it ready for when the repair man comes back to install the new parts.
One of the hardest things about being a teenage girl is all that sex stuff* and Karen Maine captures one girl’s experience exploring self-pleasure while also balancing what’s being taught at her Catholic school, plus dealing with rumors that have to do with her performing a sex act identified by slang she isn’t familiar with.** While she navigates her own path by mostly trying to stay on her church’s version of the straight and narrow, the rumors spread to the adults in her community and her standing falls. Natalia Dryer is a pro at capturing Alice’s befuddled confusion and growing skepticism in this amusing film.
The verdict: Good
Cost: $6.99 via Redbox On Demand Where watched: at home
Consider also watching:
Slums of Beverly Hills (I remember a specific scene with Natasha Lyonne and Marisa Tomei, the rest has faded from memory)
*The Madonna/whore thing is a tough needle to thread, plus add in religious and family expectations, peer group expectations, gossip, cultural markers gleaned from the entertainment world, not to mention the possibility of past or current sexual abuse or assault. **Maine makes the most of her time period: AOL when chat rooms could turn dirty without warning and search functions were minimal.
Questions:
What’s the best way to deal with unfounded rumors?
How do you think Alice’s friends shaped her choices?
There’s a lot of really great coming-of-age films, but they often show painful sex. I wanted to see women exploring their own bodies more. American Pie, The Squid and the Whale—there’s a lot of films that show male masturbation. But I wanted to show the female part of it. I definitely want to find other ways to show women portraying new roles in cinema that feel very familiar to the women we are and that we know—but we’re either afraid to talk about, or men have been afraid to show on screen.
The talking heads in this movie are all women* and all are talking about how hard it is to get a job as a director in Hollywood. Various areas of discrimination are covered** as many directors get to talk about what they love about directing and what keeps them from their love. One thing I learned: it’s just as hard to break into directing TV episodes as it is to direct feature films.***
The verdict: Good
Cost: free via DVD from the Multnomah County Library Where watched: at home
Further sentences:
*Nearly all are directors, but there’s a woman from the Sundance Institute who pops in now and then, plus a few academics and a reporter who notes that she’s written the same article about the lack of women directors nine or ten times. **Directing is “too hard” for women. What about their families? Crews don’t like to listen to women. Women can’t direct action/horror/war/most things. Male critics tend to not “get” movies made by women. Things made by women aren’t as good as things made by men. ***This was interesting to me because I’ve noticed that most women feature film directors intersperse directing films with directing TV episodes. It turns out that if you haven’t directed TV, the powers that be aren’t convinced you can direct it, even if you’ve directed entire movies.
Questions:
What do you think the solution is to get more women behind the camera?
I could buy a box with these plastic things to wind my embroidery thread on them, but why would I when I have many plastic lids that cannot be recycled in my town’s recycling system?
(Update from the future. Once I got more than five colors of thread, I totally went and bought that box and discarded these homemade spools.)
Sara writes from their new afternoon spot at Septentrio Winery. Because they can sit outdoors, they’ve taken to getting a bottle of wine after going to the farmer’s market.
Sara points out that the store Just My Type has moved around the corner and said she put a star on their old location. But I wonder if the star didn’t make it through the mail?
Directed by Patricia Rozema Written by Patricia Rozema
The review:
Based on the Jean Hegland book that made a big impression on me in the late 90s,* this film highlights how the bond between sisters can be strengthened and tested when the world switches to survival. As distopias go, it’s a low-key one,** though stuff goes down, giving Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood a chance to show off their skills. I thought the timing was off, and the movie wrapped up too quickly, but I so rarely get to see two-person films where both persons are women, this felt like a treat.
The verdict: Good
Cost: free via Kanopy, the library’s streaming service. Where watched: at home
*Mental note I made after reading the book: Make sure to have a library of foraging and survival books on hand. I still haven’t checked off that note. **Northern California’s lush landscape (played here by British Columbia) keeps everything from feeling hopeless.
Questions:
Are you ready to survive in your landscape, should you have to?
What’s your favorite two-person film where both persons are women?
Favorite IMDB trivia item:
Ellen Page was inspired to make the film after coming across the book written by Jean Hegland while browsing through a small store in her native Halifax. It was suggested to her by the woman working there and after she read it, she decided to produce a movie-version of the story.
