Tag: fun

The Movie Quiz 10-Year Anniversary

Matt, Greg, Renee, and I attended the 10-Year Anniversary Movie Quiz. We were excited to go because to celebrate the quiz’s long run, every team was guaranteed a prize.

As we are middling movie quizzees, this was our chance to win a prize.

I was hoping to score a Hallmark Keepsake Beatrice “Tris” Pior Divergent ornament. Mark the Quizmaster gives at least one of them away during every quiz. He jokes that they will probably be used as currency when the world ends.

We also had to identify Divergent from a film clip. I overthought it and guessed it was one of the later movies, so we even missed the Divergent question. (!)

We had a slow first round, and rallied a bit in the second round, but we were nowhere near the top three. Those winners got movie passes to the Hollywood Theatre and free movie rentals at Movie Madness. They also got first pick of the winning prizes. The prizes were stacked in the front of the theater, of various sizes, and all wrapped.

Mark told us that the theater asked us to open our prizes outside, so that we wouldn’t overburden the theater staff with extra cleaning duties.

Matt picked our prize, and it was book sized and squishy. It clearly wasn’t a Hallmark Keepsake Beatrice “Tris” Pior Divergent ornament. We guessed it might be a t-shirt as we exited the theater.

There, under the marquee lights, we unwrapped our prize in the company of other Movie Quiz prizewinners.

And we won a copy of Divergent!

Looking around at the other teams, we found that everyone, no matter the size of their prize, had also won a copy of the movie Divergent. “But some people got a Blu-ray,” a woman helpfully observed.

We all laughed, and I laughed more at the thought of Mark setting up this elaborate joke and also not being able to witness the payoff because he was still upstairs in the theater distributing prizes.

Good Food on this Day

Whatever could this amount of butter be needed for?

Did you guess cinnamon rolls? You were correct.

Kinnamons has a bevy of cinnamon roll choices.

We didn’t sample any. We were looking for tea and a place to rest our feet as our walkabout the previous day had worn us out.

After the tea refreshed us, we checked out the shops on Alberta Street before heading to Urdaneta for dinner.

The tapas were delicious, and we ate a ton.

Quixote Nuevo at Portland Center Stage

Matt and I took in PCS’s Quixote Nuevo, and had a great evening of theater. The story transports Don Quixote to La Plancha, Texas, where a retired English professor with dementia heads off on a journey for his long-lost love.

Among the great performances and great songs there was also great puppetry. The cast of nine was kept busy with multiple roles, and the story was compelling.

Also, this was a co-production and traveled from the South Cost Repertory Theater in Costa Mesa, California, to the Seattle Repertory Theater and then ended its run in Portland. The set was designed to fit all three stages, and the actors worked for longer because of it. In a time when arts organizations are struggling, this seems like a brilliant plan.

Oscar Viewing Party at McMenamins

Though I have no photo proof, Friend Jessica and I attended McMenamin’s Oscar Viewing Party. It was good fun. As usual, I brought along my Happiest Oscar Viewer game, so we could pick who we wanted to win.

While I wasn’t happy for every category category I picked, I was thrilled that the Zone of Interest won best sound design (truly amazing) and that the Last Repair Shop won for Best Documentary Short.

Ruth Carter at the Tomorrow Theater

Famous costume designer Ruth Carter was scheduled to come to Portland in January, and I neglected to get a ticket and was sad. But it turned out that her visit coincided with the ice storm and didn’t happen, so she was rescheduled to March, and I did buy a ticket.

After finding my assigned seat (instead of the random seat I grabbed because I didn’t pick up on the fact there were assigned seats, even though I had picked my seat hen ordering the ticket (the Disney trip really overloaded me, and I had trouble navigating spaces for a few days after our return)) Ruth Carter appeared and was interviewed.

It was a great interview, and I learned a lot about her many Oscar nominations (she said that Black Panther was the first time she was favored to win and that the interview requests scaled up to match that favored status, so much so that she was exhausted by the time of the ceremony. Also that when they were making Black Panther, no one knew it was going to be as successful as it was, so midway through she lost half of her team to a different movie (that was a flop).

She also talked about working with Spike Lee and their long collaboration.

For those of you not able to see Carter in person, you can check out her book, The Art of Ruth E. Carter.

Disneyland Tuesday

And so we begin our day at Disneyland! We were there for rope drop and right in the front of the rope, so I got to see them wind up the rope on a rope holder that perfectly centered each flag on the rope. Disneyland is so very efficient!

I was a riot of patterns today: bag, jacket, and dress.

We rode the Matterhorn first thing and I grabbed a picture of these two gentleman (and their son, who I cropped out of the picture) who were wearing the classic Mickey Mouse-style sweatshirt and original ears. I had that in the 80s, but in t-shirt version. It was rare to see the traditional ears. Most people wore headband-style ears that came in a multitude of styles.

One thing I didn’t realize until we visited is how many people would dress alike. There were so many fun shirts worn by friends and family groups.

Matt was our navigator, and here he is checking the map on his phone while we waited for the Storybook Land Canal Boats.

And here we are on said boats. I was glad we visited this ride when there was basically no wait. It’s a fun ride with a five minute wait. Maybe less so if the wait is longer.

Also the cast member’s uniforms in Fantasyland were my favorite. Such a good color of green. So Alps-inspired. The internet is not providing me with pictures, but they were great.

We visited Star Tours, which was much fun, and didn’t exist when I last visited.

From there, we headed off to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge to ride Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. (Many colons are present in Star Wars land.) My favorite part was the Stormtrooper hanger. So cold and creepy. Overall, I really did feel transported to the Star Wars world. Well done, Disney.

We took part in the earworm ride that is It’s A Small World. Such great design.

Both inside and out.

We spent a lot of time in Frontierland hanging out near the water. We took this raft to Pirate’s Lair on Tom Sawyer Island. We had ranked this island low on our things to do, but it turned out to be really fun to explore. We also canoed around the island, which was a fun and active activity.

And, of course, we rode the Mark Twain Riverboat.

We actually ended up riding this several times as it was a good time killer while we were waiting for our Lightning Lanes.

Cafe Orleans was where we had lunch. I got the famous Monte Cristo Sandwich. Matt got some pasta.

And here we are on the monorail.

We left around 7:00 p.m. and Matt was asleep before 8.

Black Grace

Friend Jessica bought season tickets to White Bird and then had to go out of town during this performance. I got the tickets, and Matt and I settled in for a grand night of dancing.

Handgame, which incorporated Samoan slap dance with child abuse themes, was my favorite. The members sat in a circle, and sang Lourde’s “Royals” acapella. The movement was in the arms and how the hands slapped the body and other bodies. It was quite powerful.

The other two programs “Kiona and the Little Bird Suite” and “Paradise Rumour” showed off the dancing talents, the very fit dancers, and a dancing style I was not familiar with.

It was a great evening!