Tag: Portland

Respite.

Friday night activities are hard on me. I’m usually tired from the work week and want nothing more than to collapse on the couch and read. Also, I’m done with work at the super early hour of 4:30 pm and this makes it inconvenient for me to attend gatherings which usually start at six or seven pm. Do I go home and come back? Do I hang out downtown for a few hours? It seems to much to figure. Every once in awhile, I do venture out on Friday night. Here is how one such adventure of filling time turned out.

Today, we were meeting at 7 pm. It is the end of the school year (yet school goes on and on!) and I was exhausted. I headed to the library to pick up some holds, read there until close to six and then wandered down to Pioneer Square to hang out on the steps until seven.

I had no idea what an amazing pick-me-up this would be. Each year Pioneer Courthouse Square is decorated during the Rose Festival for a Festival of Flowers. The display has a theme each year, this year’s was “Parterre.” After the event is over the general public can purchase the flowers and shrubbery at greatly discounted prices. The displays are usually visually striking, but this year I was in love with the Adirondack chairs. As were many other people. I sat and read and people watched and drank in the city until I felt much, much better.
I eventually switched chairs so I could have a footrest and had this view. The clouds didn’t even deter me. When it started to sprinkle, I got out my umbrella and kept reading.


The view from my second seat.

As a bonus, on the way to the restaurant, I came across this great old-timey band.

Ahh. Much better.

Grand Floral Parade

My mother and my Aunt Pat joined me for the Grand Floral Parade. We had great seats right at the beginning and enjoyed not being rained on, despite the ominous look of the clouds. We did not enjoy the many, many delays even though we were about 300 yards from the beginning of the parade. The picture theme for this parade was “find the girl drummers” and there weren’t very many. So there are other pictures too.

I loved these Mummers. Reading about them on Wikipedia, it seems that “String Band” is one of the four categories for the Mummer’s Parade.

Not only are their costumes fabulous, they also have accordions marching with them.

Sunset High School!

Look! A girl drummer!

Westview. Will it have a girl drummer?

One of our favorite games to play is “spot the band director.” This gentleman makes it easy by sporting a tux. Sometimes they are a bit more stealthy.

Westview does have girl drummers, but they are bass drummers which don’t count because the girl drummers are often relegated to bass drums.

Civil War reenactors.

And a Civil War fellow who managed to time travel to a period where 4X4s exist.

As I say during every parade, “Back when I was in marching band, we had no parents toting water for us to drink. We just sucked it up and marched!” Also, I miss the flared cheerleader skirts. The whole fun part of the cheerleader costume is that flaired skirt. Kids today!

Lincoln has girl drummers, but once again they are relegated to the bass drums.

The Marine Band did not have girl drummers, but they sounded fabulous!

I love the Royal Rosarians and their simultaneous hat tipping. Their cream wool suits and capes are nifty too. I hope to someday be a Royal Rosarian.

The really old ones get to ride in old cars.

When this school from Japan walked by I finally hit the girl drummer jackpot. EVERY drummer was a girl. How could this be? Because it is a girls school!
I love their uniforms, even though purple isn’t my favorite color. They have flippy skirts AND knee socks.

How about the Canadians? Has their socialized medicine led to more girl drummers?

Indeed! There is one right there.

And the pipers. They need drummers. Do they have girl drummers?

They do! And not a few!

Pictures of the Grand Floral Parade wouldn’t be complete without some rodeo queens.

Waiting for the Starlight Parade

I don’t mind being the one to go down to the parade hours before it begins to hold a space for everyone else. I have my book and a comfortable chair and a good amount of people watching. It is a fun way for me to spend my time.

Then when people show up I get to chat with them.
Or take pictures of their very cute baby.

Why are there no pictures of the actual parade? Because right before it began, my camera battery died.

Holds.

When I was growing up it cost fifty cents to put a hold on a book. Because of this large cost I never did that, not even when the sequel to Gone With the Wind came out. I can remember my dad putting a hold on a book once. Now, thanks to computers, I get 90% of my books from the hold shelf.

Though I enjoy looking up books in the catalog and finding them in the stacks, as well as wandering the fiction stacks to happen upon a new author or series, I have to say I love the hold system more. Sure, it takes the random happenstance out of the library process, but our library has many enthusiastic patrons and also has many branches which means that if you have a certain book in mind it is most likely either 1) checked out or 2) checked out at your branch but available at another branch. Because of this, it is much easier to just find the book online and place a hold. Then the kindly library employees get to to your branch, place it on a shelf for you and send you an email letting you know the book is ready. All this is free! Free!

The central library branch has been my branch since I moved here in 2001. When the new Kenton branch opens I will change branches, but it will be with a heavy heart. I love going weekly into that great structure. When I first started picking up holds at the library, someone named Collins, Melanie Dee also had a lot of holds. I would see her books every time I went in to pick up my holds. I thought one day I would run into her, but she disappeared. Or at least her holds did. She has been replaced by Collins, Callie Jo. Perhaps I will encounter her one day. Or perhaps not. Strangely, I never look to see what either of my hold-mates read. It seems a bit voyeuristic.

Trains on the bus mall, oh my!

Trimet has decided to add Max trains to the Bus Mall mix. I think this is a dumb idea, but they didn’t ask me specifically, and so they just kept keeping on with the idea. Dumb idea or no, I got excited when I saw one today. They don’t officially move there until August/September, but they are training this month. My line is one that is shifting from the original tracks to the “Transit Mall” as it is referred to now. On the one hand, my walking commute to work will be shorter, but on the other, I will have to walk out of my way to go to the library and church. Also, the beginning of the line won’t be as accessable to me. I don’t like that so much.

Dead Relative Tour 2009

I love cemeteries. They have so many interesting things to see. Here is a smattering of them:

I plan to be cremated, but if I were buried, the last thing I would want is this heavy slab on top of me.

No, not that Jimi Hendrix

“Is that a…?” “I think it might be….It is a coyote in an urban cemetery!”

The whole road through the cemetery is lined with these highly pruned holly trees. I kind of like their super structure.

Christ!

I took this picture just to hear Matt say their name with a German accent.
Which he did without prompting.
I know him well.

Either Mrs. or Miss Fenstermacher was a member of the Wahkeena Chapter of the DAR.

Oftentimes it is fun to say the names on the gravestone. Say it with me: “Slack.” I also like Mrs. Slack’s name: Nettie Elnora.

I was surprised by the very Disney looking Bambi carving on this stone, but this must have been before Disney started cracking down on its copyright. Or maybe they had a whole line of Disney themed gravestones? That wouldn’t surprise me.

Poor Leo. It looks like Mrs. Schlesinger found another place to rest her head. Also, I like the simple flower carvings and the font.

The section of the cemetery we visit has more than a few abandoned husbands. Mr. Van Winkle is not going to wake up from this nap.

These are fake flowers, but I did check to see who had this grave. Most of the graves in the section we go to aren’t very decorated.

It turned out to be a baby’s grave. Those are always sad, but someone hasn’t forgotten this child.

I can never resist taking pictures of the mausoleum where my Great Uncle Tom is. Swinging early 70s meets quasi religious touches meets a TON of artificial flowers.

Marble AND a brass chainmail curtain? I love it!

“We’re not religious, but we will throw some stained glass up for those of you who are.”

Different cemetery: The MAunts (looking more and more like my grandparents every day) decorating Grandma and Grandpa’s grave.

My Grandparents’ view.

The only problem with cremation is you don’t get a gravestone. They always look so nice to me.

Their neighbor

I initially stopped because I liked their last name because it reminded me of the nursery rhyme.

But I liked what they had carved on their gravestone. For Jean: wife, mother, teacher.

For George: Father, Musician, Horseman. (I’m trying not to be annoyed that he hasn’t listed “husband” to go with his partners “wife,” because overall, I like the concept.)

It is back to the bus mall!

This is the last weekend I will catch the bus on Third or Fourth avenues. Very soon, the bus stops will move back where they belong: on the bus mall. There will be a summer of “only” buses, cars, pedestrians, then in August and September the new Max lines will also join the cars and bikes and buses on the “transit mall.” We shall see how that goes. At any rate, I’ll be glad to be back on the mall. The sight lines are much better there.