Tag: OrangeDoor

What’s International Analog Day? It’s a day where we spend time doing things that don’t involve technology, where we party like it’s 1903. The day was created by Shannon Downey and friends, and promoted on her Badass Cross Stich site.

Matt and I decided to celebrate.

The Wednesday before the party, I still hadn’t figured out what food we were serving. But it was a day I went into the office, and also a day I forgot to bring my phone with me when going to the office. At lunch time, I realized I didn’t have anything to read, so I went out to the new books section and grabbed a book about party food, thinking it might inspire me. Instead it gave me my entire food plan: a mug party!

What is a mug party? The author had a tiny apartment when he first moved to New York City, and liked to entertain, but found that while people were happy to perch anywhere, it was hard to deal with plates and utensils while sitting crisscross on the floor. He had a lot of mugs, so he invited party food that could be served in mugs.

Et voila! The menu! Grapefruit mules, mozzarella sticks with marinara, a very green minestrone, one-pot broccoli shells and cheese, and a seven-layer sundae bar. To this I added a crudité platter, hummus, crackers and five bowls of noshes from the bulk bins at WinCo.

I was worried about the mug situation. Due to my constant discarding, we had four. Many people had not RSVP’d, so while I could tell the people who had RSVP’d to bring mugs, I was worried we would run out if a bunch of non-RSVP’d people showed up.

But! Walking back from New Seasons to buy the mint we needed for the mint syrup, Matt said to me, “Should we bring home these two boxes of mugs?” And there, sitting out for us to take, were about 12 mugs that someone was discarding. The party gods had provided!

Matt was an excellent sous chef, and I enjoyed the food prep.

As usual, I forgot to take photos when people were actually attending, but we had a good turnout, and the food was delicious. Sadly, I forgot to put out the coconut cream whipped cream for the sundaes, but everything else went smoothly.

What did we do at our analog party? As you can see, Matt made it very easy for people to play games. We also did knitting and embroidery. And I unknit a blanket Gail was making with what turned out to be not very good yarn. Kevin brought a Lego kit to assemble.

A good time was had by all.

When the party was done, we washed the mugs, and returned them to the curb for others to enjoy.

He brought along his other signs too. Because protests are more fun with more signs.

Matt brought extra signs for the anticipated larger crowd that would probably appear to protest the second murder of a US citizen this month.

The turnout was higher, so his signs got some use.

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.

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