Tag: fun

We Visit the A, B, Sea

For our date tonight, we searched out Mike Bennett’s A, B, Sea display, which I read about in the Oregonian. Each day, Bennett puts out another letter in his themed alphabet in his front yard. We were there on the nineteenth day, so could see A through S.

Matt writes postcards to his niece and nephew.

We both posed for this top-notch head-in-the-hole display.

Matt poses next to his initials: jellyfish and manta ray.

I especially liked this elephant seal.

I posed next to my initials: pelican and clownfish. Also, when we visited, there were no other people present. I think maybe families come earlier in the day.

Though no seashells were available when we stopped by, you can see that others have decorated and returned these seashells and they were added to the display.

There were postcards and stickers to take home.

It was a fun find! Thanks, Mike Bennett. After the entire alphabet appears, this will go to live at the Rogue Brewing in Newport.

Second Shot!

My second shot was early in the morning. This turned out to be a mistake, as I had mild flu symptoms and the copy editing load at work was heavy and also one of the copy editors called in sick. So I was shivering and miserable while copy editing. Still, it’s better than not getting a second dose.

As you can see, I was one of those 15,249 Pfizer vaccine doses.

Here are my various things acquired on this day. The woman who gave me my shot was a bit distracted. Among other things, she asked me what color bandage I wanted and then after I said orange, gave me the yellow.

As it was before, I enjoyed the efficient process at the convention center.

My First Shot

I headed down to the Portland Convention Center to get my first dose of the Coronavirus vaccine. It was a very fast and efficient process and provided more people watching opportunities than I had had in more than a year. Also, the woman who gave me my shot is the mother of two of the First U youth I met when I was doing YRUU. Portland, the biggest small town in the USA.

There were stern “no photos!” rules, but I couldn’t resist grabbing this photo of the discarded stickers saying what time people could leave after their 15- or 30-minute resting period. As you can see from all those 6 p.m. stickers, my appointment was at the end of the day. I got the Pfizer shot.

And here you can see that I was one of 13,000+ people to get the Pfizer vaccine that day.

Christmas Present: A Movie!

In the normal world, I don’t go to the movies on Christmas, because I wouldn’t want to go to work in Christmas Day and I don’t think my actions should support other people having to go to work on that day. But this is a pandemic, all the theaters are closed, and Wonder Woman 1984 is opening on HBO Max on Christmas Day!

So we bought our selves a one-month subscription to the channel, and prepped for a Christmas Day treat.

I made a cheesy pizza roll appetizer I’d had my eye on for years, Matt broke out the cheese from the gift basket his uncle sent, I mixed up a colorful cocktail, and we settled in for the next Wonder Woman installment! Here’s my review.

The Santas

Since we are quarantining this year, Matt and I will not be doing the usual, which is going to Aunt Carol’s house for dinner and stockings. Instead, we went to find the Bakelite Santas that Chris Willis (@ChrisWillis) has been installing in various Portland locales for 10 years. We pondered the clue he gave us and set out for Westmoreland where we wandered about until we saw a faint pink glow coming from an empty building.

The Santas were marvelous!

This was our first time seeing them. They don’t usually wear masks, but this year is a special year. We got to find six mask variations.

This was a very fun break from our routine. Here’s more about the project.

Decorating Santa Cookies with Mom

Mom wanted to give her neighbors some cookies and, when searching the internet, found someone’s great idea to turn a heart-shaped cookie upside down and make a Santa. Using just the star tip, some frosting, and jimmies, red hots, and chocolate chips, we made these darling little creatures.

These are also historic cookies because while we were making them, I got a call offering me a job as a full-time copy editor.

An Author Teenage Me Loved

Jude Deveraux was one of the romance novelists I cut my teeth on in the 80s. I suspect I haven’t read this book (it was published in 2002) but I enjoyed how finding this book in a Little Free Library reminded me of that time in my life.

Also, I looked up Deveraux on Wikipedia and discovered that her eight-year-old son was killed in 2005 and that a psychic stole all her money. That’s not a happy ending for a romance writer.