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.
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.
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.
We took our traditional timer photo before leaving our yurt at South Beach State Park. This was a great location, nicely situated for all sorts of vacation fun.
On our way home, we stopped at a lookout, and a fellow traveler pointed out a seal hanging out by himself.
As we were driving over the Yaquina Bay Bridge, I noticed a very long dock. What might it be? It turned out to be the Newport Municipal Crabbing Dock and it provided us a long walk out into the bay, plus a close up view of crabbing.
There were also seagulls lying in wait for any crabbing spoils they could grab. They perched along the railing, and as we walked along the dock they flew off in succession, reminding me of a Broadway chorus line.
As you can see it was cold and windy, but it was also a fun find on our trip.
We had an open window of about an hour with no rain forecast, so we rented fat-tire bikes at Bike Newport and had a very fun ride on the beach.
The riding was great because all the sand was very wet from the torrential rain the day before. It was my first time riding a fat tire bike, and I had a blast.
It was also significantly harder than riding on paved streets. I got very sweaty.
From there, we went to check out the sea lions, who were living their best sea lion life on the Newport docks. You can see them for yourself on the livecam.
They were incredibly fun to watch.
So much so that we ate at the Clearwater Restaurants so that we could continue watching them.
I got fish and chips, my favorite thing to get at the beach. Both fish and chips were delightfully hot and seasoned and I felt I had made a good choice.
After lunch, we stopped by the exterior of Ripley’s Believe it or Not so Matt could get a picture with the Hulk.
From there, we went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium where it wasn’t very cold, but it was raining. I made the unfortunate choice to not wear my rain jacket. It’s a mostly outside aquarium.
We did, however, time it perfectly, fun-wise. We first watched the birds get fed, then continued on to the seals and sea lions’ feeding, and then finished up with the sea otters’ feeding.
