Very sad news this morning:
It seems our December results will be our final results. I’m hoping all is okay with Quizmaster Mark, as we had tickets to the January show, so it was a late cancellation.
Thanks for the many good evenings, Mark.
Matt was out protesting again, and made a sign for today.
I enjoy the layers of signs. As he finds more things to say, he adds another layer of posterboard to his sign.
He reported that the crowds were bigger than they had been lately. It’s not hard to see why. RIP Renee Good.
Matt had the idea to go to Peacock Lane for our date this week, and I thought that was a great plan. I hadn’t been since I was in the single digits.
Peacock Lane is a few blocks of houses in southeast Portland where every house decorates big. This has been going on since the 1920s.
Here are some pictures from our walk.
For shear tons-of-stuff delight, this display of many unicorns was my favorite house. Some houses have elaborate themes (as you will see); but I liked this unicorn-centered house. Unicorns don’t even have anything to do with Christmas, but they were magical all the same.
Matt and I in front of the unicorns.
People live in these houses as we were reminded by this pair who were clearly standing at the door on business. I wonder how it is to try and drive in and out during the two weeks with the lights. There is a lot of car traffic (though it’s slow) and a ton of pedestrians. Do people just stay in? Park their cars on other streets?
Anyway, that was the Harry Potter house, and here we are walking through Platform 9 and 3/4.
The Home Alone house has a lot going on. It starts with this little shadowbox.
And includes several life-size depictions of characters from the movie.
The Star Wars house is nicely minimal. I liked that there were three distinct zones: red, Darth Vadar; white, Princess Lea; and green, Yoda.
A nice sentiment at this house:
And a fun homage to ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas at this one:
The Peanuts house was fun, including Woodstock on the Zamboni.
And here’s a nice greenery and white lights display:
On the way home, we stopped at our own Kenton neighborhood display:
I like to call it “I’ll have one of everything, please!”
We had a good time celebrating Christmas at Linda and Rick’s new house. I had seen it just after they got the keys, but this time there was furniture! And a fun meal.
From left to right: Mary Stenaros, Pat Stenaros Matt Johnston, Larry Glass, Patricia Collins, Linda Johnston, and Rick Thalhammer
We also opened stockings, as you can see from these low-light action photos.
Many scratch-off tickets were scratched.
The tree ambiance was good too.
And here’s a picture of the Yule Log cake I made. It was my first one, and it turned out well.
Did we win our very own Hallmark Keepsake ornament of Prince Dastan from the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time? We sure did!
We won because we answered a specific question correctly, rather than for our high score, but I’m happy to win any prize at the Movie quiz.
And here we are again ranked number 17, holding up the bottom of the middle.
I enjoy that the top four winners all chose holiday-themed names: Miracle on 30 Farts Street; Menstrual Krampus; Porch Pirates of the Caribbean; and The Grinch Who Stole Quizmas.
Mark was our Father Quizmas, and a great time was had by all.
(Except our teammates Greg and Renee. They forgot to attend)
It had been a few years, so Matt and I went to check up on the Bakelite Santas and see how they are doing. The riddle mentioned the old Pepsi factory, and I knew exactly where they were. I didn’t even need the words “sandy shore” to solve this particular riddle. Because the old Pepsi factory building is a thing of beauty:
While it did have some Santas in it, it didn’t have the Bakelite Santas.
These Santas were portraits painted by Terence Healy for the first year. You can see that one is a daytime version, and the other a night-time version.
The Bakelite Santas were across the plaza.
I agree with the write-up of the Santas; that you can see them glow from far aways is one of the coolest things about them.
This was a fun place to have them displayed because there were windows on three sides. This made it easy to spend some time looking at them.
They were standing in rows with packing peanuts serving as the snow.
I neglected to get any shots from the front, alas.
Matt has been working with Indivisible D-2 to organize a protest outside the Apple Store asking that Apple reinstate the ICE Watch app. Matt reworked at least eight Christmas songs, changing the lyrics to be critical of ICE. Other people made signs and worked out other logistics.
Matt wasn’t in town for the initial protest (they will be back every Saturday between now and Christmas) but was very excited that KOIN 6 covered their protest.
They even were second in the more-top-stories section.
Good job Matt, and Indivisible D-2
We journeyed to Beaverton for my prix fixe birthday dinner. Don’s Favorite Foods did not disappoint.
It’s a very small space (6 tables?), with an open kitchen, and Don brings out most of the courses himself. The space is also done up like a 70s Long Island Basement with wood paneling and very familiar decorations (at least if you were born in the 70s).
Don sets a menus for the month, and offers a regular and vegetarian version. We ordered both menus and traded halfway through. This is a picture of the glazed pork belly with radicchio and apples (Matt) and the roasted cauliflower with currents, capers, and saffron. That was our first course after the antipasti, which included a sesame popover (so good!)
We also had linguine and clams (lemon) (clams are Don’s favorite things, according to our menu); roasted beef ribeye, salsa verde, braised potato (Kabocha squash risotto, red onion agrodolce, and roasted radicchio); Meyer lemon granita for a palette cleanser; and then chocolate olive oil cake with ricotta and candied orange for dessert.
I wouldn’t mind going back.
For decades before 8004 was built and before I lived there, the neighbor’s walnut tree has been part of my visual landscape. It doesn’t show up a lot in photos, because I’m usually standing on the back porch looking at the point in the backyard, but you can see the edge of it in this post about Matt’s pandemic haircut.
It’s been changed over the years. The owners of the motel next door didn’t like a branch hanging over their roof, so that branch was removed. But it’s been a pleasant visual companion and has fed generations of squirrels with the walnuts it produces.
“I heard a very loud noise the other morning,” Matt said one day. He couldn’t identify what it was. A few days later, I went outside and noticed a very large branch had fallen off the tree and was covering most of the back yard where the tree lives. That probably solved the loud noise mystery.
Today, I realized I’d been hearing chainsaws for some time and got up from my desk to investigate. I was horrified to see the walnut tree as only a stump, and caught this picture about five minutes before I heard the loud “thunk” of the trunk coming down.
I’m not one to be sentimental over trees. I celebrated when the huge oak in my mom’s back yard laid itself down in an ice storm. But this had been such a big part of my life at the Orange Door, both indoors and out. It provided a nice green blotch on the southeast part of the property, and I’ve watched from my desk as squirrels run from the fir tree in Leo’s yard along the fence to the walnut tree and back.
What are all those squirrels going to eat now that their walnut source is gone?
I don’t go to protests. I don’t think they help. So while I’m happy to have all the protesters who want to protest go to protests, I’m not one to go.
However, things are so bad that I felt like I might as well do the thing I don’t think works, because nothing else seems to be working right now. The October 2025 No Kings Protest was my first official protest.
Matt came with two signs, one for his backpack and one to hold in his hands. Rick also attended, and here’s our picture before we headed over to the assembly space.
In the assembly space, I saw my favorite shirt: Be patient with me, my mom took Tylenol.
The assembly space by the convention center gradually filled up, and it was time to walk to the main starting point across the river in Waterfront park.
Here are two people who neglected to make a sign for the back of their protest signs. They also use very fancy toilet paper. I never did see the front.
The approach to the Steel Bridge. We were in the middle, with a ton of people in front and in back. And people came from two other assembly areas. It was a huge crowd.
Waiting for the protest to start took a goodly amount of time, but allowed me to capture many signs include my favorite sign that day: It’s the cruelty that bothers me the most.
The inflated animals were out in full force. This was a fun development that came from the Portland Frog Brigade, but whimsical protest has a long history as explained here.
I loved this person’s jacket, and wondered if they made it. Later, I saw they were embroidering (while standing!) so my guess is yes.
I enjoyed the wide variety of signs, from collage, to perfectly laid out, to scrawled quickly in Sharpie.
Matt was glad to see that Jesus was endorsing AOC in 2028. (There were many Jesuses walking around.)
Vaccines cause adults was another of my favorite signs.
We really laughed at this one, and saw a few on the theme.
Portland Frog Brigade crocheted head covering!
When looking at other people’s protest pictures on Instagram, many of them saw this very big frog too.
It was overall, an impressive turnout and a very long day. I think next time, I will volunteer to support the protest.
