Matt and I play SceneIt Sqabble

As you might remember, Battleship Cinematic Universe won a prize at the Movie Quiz in March.

Nearly two months later, we have now played our new game!

I can say that I’ve now played this game and it was just as (or perhaps more?) entrenched in toxic gender tropes than I thought.

Having the advantage of being socialized to absorb “male” culture things meant that I won this game all three times we played it. But did I make the tired/disappointed noise with every interstitial? I did. That lady grabbing the wrench to do something with potting soil? Annoying. The guy riding the motorcycle that jumps into the lady’s champagne glass? Dumb. The way the female/male partners were painted as adversaries rather than companions? Gross.

Matt was similarly annoyed, though layered with a slight whiff of double annoyance for not winning.

We will be moving this game right out of the house, but it was still a fun to win it. Yay us!

Requiem: Timer

Well, it has happened. My CDN timer has finally given up the ghost. Other than showing the time (which you must set exactly at noon) it no longer counts down or up.

In my correspondence files, I have a letter written on July 1, 2006 to the CDN corporation. I had purchased their timer at the hardware store, and it promptly gave up the ghost, so I sent off a letter of complaint. They wrote back offering to replace the timer and this one arrived shortly after.

And so I got almost 19 years of use out of it. Excellent customer service CDN, and well done hearty timer that survived being regularly dropped by me for almost two decades.

Sadly the recent drop brought the good record to the end, so I must say goodbye to this companion.

2025 Dead Relatives Tour Part II

Worry not, readers, you have not missed the DRT Part I post. I didn’t take any pictures, so there is no post. On Saturday, my mother and Aunt Pat went to Findley Sunset to decorate my grandparents’ grave with flowers from my aunt’s yard. The older generation has aged out of multiple cemetery trips, so I rode my bike over to Rose City Cemetery early this morning to decorate the graves there.

Basil and Basiliky got a rope full of origami flowers I had been folding over the past few months.

I like how everything turned out.

I then headed to the mausoleum for Uncle Tom’s decoration, but alas, I was too much of an early bird.

The posted hours begin at 9:00, and I was far from that time.

I checked around on the outside and found a good spot in Mabel Collins. She got Uncle Tom’s origami flower arrangement.

I’m pleased with how these turned out too. That white flower is especially pretty, but it’s a hard one to fold, which is why there is only one. I folded it on recycled paper because I was practicing.

Here I am measuring the vase size to prepare for next year.

We Break 120 at the Movie Quiz

It was a good night for Battleship Cinematic Universe. We had all four members and we were familiar with more movies than we normally are.

Our high score was a whopping 136, which got us ranked 15th overall (though there were many ties, so we are on the downslide of the pack).

Winners Reese Withoutherspoon was my favorite name of the night. But I also liked The Michael Bay Hive and Face Off 2: Butt Swap

Slasher Sluts were sitting in front of us.

New Couch Pillows

We’ve had this orange pillow and orange striped pillow for many years. How many? I just found a post from December 2008 (Sentinel’s welcome post) with the striped one. So at least 17 years old. I’ve been meaning to get (or make) new pillows for the last several (maybe 5? maybe 10?) years.

It’s entirely possible that my mother gave me those pillows. I’m not so good at prioritizing buying things like that. As evidenced by my meaning to replace them for a period longer than some presidential administrations.

But! Today, while shopping for a new coffee table (another task that has been put off for about a decade) Julie and I came across these fun pillows at ReRun, and I snapped them up.

The pillows are down pillows (an upgrade) and were made at J&J Herb Farm in Eagle Creek, Oregon.

No picture yet of the coffee table. It will arrive in June.

SKS: Nap Girl and Boating Party

Sara sent this painting of a girl taking a nap (the text on the back with information about the painting is too small for me to read, and I don’t want to go and find the magnifying glass). As a fan of naps, I’m all for this picture.

Then we have the well known Renoir (which I know both because it’s famous and because the explanatory information is in a readable font.)

Both postcards arrived on the same day (!). Sara reports that she found these postcards while updating her office, which made room for all the books she is going to read for Notables.

Completed: Grammar Success in 20 Minutes a Day

I’ve been brushing up my grammar skills using this skill builder book.

While they seem to think this will only take four weeks and that learning will occur quickly and easily, I took much longer than that, because I wasn’t working every day, and also because I also made a ton of flash cards to help me memorize all the grammar terms.

Unfortunately, you can see from pre- and posttest results that I improved by a little less than 3 percent. I can say though, that during the posttest I was much more familiar with the terms rather than taking a by-ear guess.

Onto my next learning journey: verb tenses.

República Anniversary Dinner

As we have before, we celebrated our May anniversary at República, home of the incredible tasting menu. Here are a few of our courses.

Albacore, sugar snap peas, and nasturtiums.

This was also amazing! And I have no idea what it was, even reading the menu. (A reason one should take pictures of all the courses.)

Here was our thank you note and take-home item. Granola!

And here is our menu. Notice that they have wished us a happy anniversary.