Something Funny

After seeing the Clackamas Repertory Theatre (CRT) production of "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" two years ago, we subsribed to the three-play season last year, when they performed "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)," "The Fantasticks," and "The Illustrated Man." All three shows were extremely well staged and performed. So it was a foregone conclusion we would subscribe again.

Last week, the season opened with a British farce called "See How They Run." Last night we saw it, and it was hilarious! Jayson Shanafelt, who we saw in "Shakespeare (unabridged)" last year did not disappoint as Clive. Newcomer Heather Ovalle was also a standout at Ida, the maid. Then again, all the roles were very well-played in this fast paced comedy.

Though the Osterman Theatre at Clackamas Community College is an intimate venue, we have been really impressed with the productions we've seen there, so we look forward to the next two plays and what the CRT has to offer in the future.

There are still six performances. If you like a great production of a really funny play, you should see "See How They Run." Maybe we'll see you there. Oh, and if Cynthia Smith-English, CRT Managing Mirector, asks, tell her we sent you.

Busy week...no pictures

I keep thinking I want to make sure to include pictures when I post, but if I wait till I get the gumption to process pictures, we could all be waiting a while, so here's a recap of the week sans pictures.

Birthday girl
That was me last Saturday, and it was a great party. In an unusual turn of events, everyone who said they would show up actually did and a person or two who hadn't said they would come showed up. It was a good mix of family, old Apple friends, cruise buddies, neighbors, business owners turned friends, and one high school chum. I will get to processing pictures...soon...I promise.

Tom's eastern North Carolina Barbeque-style was a hit. Most tried and liked the "traditional" sandwich by piling the coleslaw on top of the barbeque on the mini-buns made just for us by Market of Choice. The appetizers brought by friends, my Bill Neal shortcake with Oregon strawberries and, sweet tea (to complete the southern theme) and we all ate quite well.

What a great way to turn 50!

Move-in days
Monday we headed to IKEA to pick up a bed frame and dresser for my mom, then down to Wilsonville to wait for the guys from Take Care Move Assistance to arrive. Somehow we'd managed to fill the moving container in pretty short order, just the two of us, but we were very glad we hired Bill and his guy because to move the contents of the box from the loading area up three floors and down the hall 150 paces (Tom size...he counted) to my mom's new apartment. What took them 1 1/2 hours would surely have taken us the full day. And there was time left on the clock for them to build my mom's bed. Now you just cannot beat that.

We had decided that it was best to start her new apartment experience Tuesday morning so everyone was fresh. So we packed her clothes that we'd moved via Alaska Airlines baggage check and headed over, where even more clothes were waiting. Thanks to neighbor Laurie, we had enough hangers to accomodate without having to make a side trip to the Container Store. We made our first grocery store trip and inagurated the refrigerator. Tom built the dining table (chairs having been built on Monday) and the entertainment unit.

Wednesday the dresser was built, the new phone programmed, and the TV set up (except we couldn't find the remote), and my mom had spent her first night in Wilsonville. She seemed pretty spunky and on seeing her yesterday, she is settling in quite nicely. She's doing something she could never have done in Sun City West - walking Tootsie outside twice a day. We have lovely weather and her new pacemaker to thank for that, I think.

Miscellany
Lest you think I was slacking when we weren't hanging with my mom: I also managed four morning walks and a belated birthday lunch at Zeppo's in Lake Oswego; had printed 200 Columbia River Sewing Guild newsletters which I then (with a little help from my cool hubby) stapled, addressed, stamped and posted; located a long lost cousin to whom my mom wanted to send an address change; made and sent out the address change notices; and made and sent out thank you notes.

Baltic Blossoms
And I finally managed to get in some forward progress knitting on Saturday.

I started the border in early June when we were in AZ. I took out 6 rows of said border when we were in AZ. I thought was my first attempt at nupps but in researching a definition, I find that I must have knit them in Evelyn Clark's Swallowtail. At any rate, they were giving me fits (k1,YO,k1,YO,k1 into one stitch, purl 5 back). I didn't like the results so in my second (or maybe third) attempt I found that knitting into the front and back of the stitch for five stitches made it much easier to purl back. Still, after making unfixable mistakes, I ended up pulling out 16 rows of border (over 200 sts each) without winding the yarn as I went and then spending the ensuing day untangling the yarn. The next time(s?) I did it, I wound the yarn so resuming wasn't to difficult.

Saturday, with no distractions, and Sliding Doors (which I've seen many times) in the background, I whipped out 32 rows of the border without so much as a hitch. Go figure.

My projects for today are to get to the last set of border rows, and do laundry which I don't think I've been caught up on since March. Maybe this week.

Doggie Dash 2008

Last year Tom and I walked the Doggie Dash and raised enough donations for the Oregon Humane Society to put us in the top three teams (excluding the board of directors). We're walking again this year (with Jake and Mandy) and, though I have no expectations of repeating the team placement, I do want to at least match the dollar amount we raised and once again I'm asking for your help. All donations count! Here's the skinny:

On Saturday, May 10 thousands of animal lovers, many with their favorite canines will run and walk two miles at the Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland, Oregon. 100% of the fees and donations go to the Oregon Humane Society toward reaching their goal of finding homes for 10,000 pets in 2008.

The Oregon Humane Society has been helping homeless animals since 1868. Last year OHS found homes for 9118, which includes animals transferred to OHS from other shelters in Oregon, Washington, and California. Additionally, OHS transfers animals who they don't think they can adopt out to other adoptions organizations to give them another chance. (That's how Jake found us.) The adoption rate at OHS is 3-4 times higher than the national average.

There's more on their website.

Please support the Oregon Humane Society with your donation by clicking here.

Thanks,

Pretty flowers

When in Scotland a few years back, we saw LOTS of hydrangeas in so many different colors. At the time we still lived in San Jose, where I had seen them only in a pale blue shade. I regretted not taking pictures. But now we live in Oregon where I now love around the splendor of the different colors. From my neighborhood (and yard, here are some pictures of pretty flowers.
 
 

People, Places, Dogs and Yarn

Oregon Coast
Our 25th anniversary deserved more than just a dinner, but with two big trips planned for 2007 (Scotland in May and Hawai'i in October), we opted for a quick getaway and headed for the Oregon coast.

Since I'm the planner in our family, Tom made some suggestions about towns to visit, but left it to me sort out where we'd stay. We'd decided early on that the dogs would go with us, but with the loss of Cody, it was just Mandy. I found a site with a list of dog-friendly lodgings and after lots of site visits, settled on the Fireside Motel in Yachats (pronounced YAH-hots). Once we arrived, we both agreed that I'd made a good decision. Mandy was happy as long as she was with us, though truth be told she'd rather have been with us in the comfort of her own house.

We left on Monday and could not have asked for a better day. We took 99W through McMinnville and on to Lincoln City, where we took a break and walked on the beach.

Checking into the Fireside Motel, we received a pet package consisting of a sheet, towel, mat and several scooper bags. Mandy was set. In town we met a local dog, Sam.


We'd booked an ocean view room and were not disappointed with the view. Behind the motel is the 3/4 mile 804 Trail, that goes along the coast, with benches and tables visitors can sit and enjoy the ocean in addition to exploring the rocks and tidepools.


We headed south to Florence on Tuesday, where we escaped the fog that had rolled in between the time I took Mandy out on her early morning walk and Tom got up. In Old Town my first stop was Reigning Cats and Dogs, which had a great selection of doggy things for people. Our next stop, was the Siuslaw Coffee Roasters where I found out that Siuslaw is pronounced "sigh-YEW-slaw" and we bought some yummy cakey fruit pastries. There was a name, but I don't remember it, but they were very dense and reminded us of a cross between shortbread and cake with fruit, a crumb topping with coconut. Again, yum.


I remembered seeing or reading about Mo's clam chowder, so on the way back to the car stopped by and got clam chowder, fresh bread and cole slaw to go. Good timing on our part because as i sat with Mandy, there was a crowd gathering outside for lunch. It was a good lunch.

On Wednesday, we headed south again to take the Eugene-Florence road home. Just north of Florence is a big "YARN" sign, so we had to stop. Happy Kampers Yarn Shop has a very large selection of yarns you'd find in big box stores, but upstairs I found a brand I'd never seen before and some wool that was just too pretty to pass up.

Sometime ago I'd found a link to Dyelots so we planned the one stop in Eugene. I was greeted by Janis as she cut mint in the side yard of the house for a visitor, then led into the house and to the yarn. She had mostly fiber, but there were beautiful yarns spun up, and this is what I brought home.


There are more pictures from the trip here.

Tacoma and Seattle
My mom lives in Sun City West, AZ and we have been trying to get her to spend some summer time away. A snowbird friend, Barbata, invited her to visit in Tacoma and the proximity to Portland finally convinced her to leave the heat for awhile. It's less expensive to fly in and out of PDX, so I made all the arrangements and on Thursday she arrived with Tootsie and we were off to Tacoma.
 

Barbara found some toys for Tootsie, who really wanted to play, but in the end was just too tired.

See more of Tootsie.

After spending a few hours enjoying Barbara's view of the Olympic Peninsula and Tacoma Narrows bridge, we headed north to meet Jud and Karrie for dinner at Camelita. The food was fabulous. It's vegetarian, but very creative "savory fare."


We arrived a little early but not problem because I had scoped out the yarn store situation and found the Fiber Gallery just a few blocks away. It was a good find. They had probably as good a book selection as I've ever seen. I'd venture to say that you could find just about any knitting book currently in print, and a few that are out of print. The yarn consisted of a lot of unusual fibers (banana leaf, corn, hemp, nettle, bamboo). In the end I bought more the more traditional fiber of merino in the form of hand painted Malabrigo lace yarn. The picture doesn't do the colors justice. The left hank is plummy while the right is mostly a chocolate brown with blues painted in.

More things to like about where we live

Nothing against the other places I've lived (and being an Air Force brat, I've lived in a few), but I have never really enjoyed where I was living till now. Now part of that may be attributed to the fact that I have the good fortune to not have to go to work everyday, so I have time to enjoy my surroundings. Nonetheless, almost everyday, I see or hear something new or different that makes the decision to move here all the better. Mind you they aren't always big...

There are the parks.
Last week, we went to Foothills Park, a Lake Oswego city park. It's not big, but the footpath goes along the Willamette so there's lots to see. Along the way we saw a couple of egrets on the rocks.


We also saw a building that has piqued our curiosity along. We saw it from the back on a walk in George Rogers Park. Was it a city building or a home? It's one of two concrete buildings in the park. I've often seen the other riding along Highway 43. I can't even think what to search on in Google...


Mary S Young Park gets a mention because it is but a mile from the house and walking there you can practically forget were smack dab in the middle of a developed town.

...and the dogs in the park
Mandy is enjoying getting out, and is getting used to the cool smells in the dog park at Mary S Young.
 

Berries
I had my first boysenberry on Wednesday from South Barlow Produce we found at the West Linn Farmers Market. We also got some huge blueberries and raspberries. To give you some perspective the blueberry was about the size of a dime.

Theatre
Last year the Clackamas Repertory Theatre put on a production of "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change!" We'd seen the off Broadway production and saw it again in San Jose, and this was the best of the three. On Sunday, we saw "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)" and it was great. There are still two performances left...

"Singin' in the Rain" caught our eye in the West Linn Tidings. Put on by the Broadway Rose Theatre Company, it was an enjoyable performance, highlighted by Daniel Lee Robbins as Cosmo. The Oregonian's review really sums up the performance.

The second performance in the Broadway Rose season is "Cole" which we saw last night. Once again we were not disappointed. Great music, great singing and a little tap number by Meredith Weber. It runs through next Sunday.

Yarn
The Portland area is a veritable mecca of knitters and yarn shops. Alas! yesterday began the closing sale at Lint so soon, we will be one store less.

Dragon Boat Races

It's been almost two weeks, but I've finally processed the pictures we took at the Dragon Boat Races during the Portland Rose Festival. Our original plan was to cheer Dianne and John on as the Realty Trust Red Dragons participated in their second year, but we missed the first day because we were sure they wouldn't run the races at the same time as the parade. Wrong!

But we did make it to see them in their quarter-final and semi-final heats, along with Jean. It was a lot of fun!
 

More pictures are here.

It bears mentioning that between the races we had lunch at the European Divine Café—because pea soup I had was delicious (and not just because I was hungry), while Tom and Jean both seem to enjoy their gyros. The service was very slow, but it appeared to be a "mom and pop" shop with only three people working there. Perhaps they weren't quite prepared for the Dragon Boat race crowd.

Forty-nine

That's the number of years I have been in this world. Today is my birthday. A friend wrote to remind me that since it is the longest day of the year, I have even more time to enjoy it.

Tom and I just got home from a walk in the Nob Hill neighborhood of Portland, after a nice lunch at Wildwood Restaurant (I ate too much, but it was good—especially the strawberry shortcake.) In an earlier life, when I really loved to shop, this would have been a great shopping trip because, with a couple of exceptions, all the shops were small and local.

Now, one of the advantages of a June birthday is that there are three birthstones: pearl, moonstone, and alexandrite. On one of our first of many walks to come, Tom told me he thought I should have a new ring for our 25th anniversary in August. I'm really not a big jewelry girl, but he'd planted the idea, so off I went looking at rings on the internet. The diamonds didn't really appeal to me, but the thought came into my head that it would be different to have an alexandrite. I figured we'd be looking for a long while to find something since it's not a stone that everyone knows, much less has in their collection. I was wrong. Dyke Vandenburgh Jewelers had a ring on their site (and still do in their gallery) that was just what I had in my head. Thus, the anniversary ring became a birthday AND anniversary ring.

I've actually been enjoying my gift for a while, but thought I'd wait till June to share the story of my alexandrite. The wonder of the stone is that it changes colors in different lights. A professional photographer, I'm not, so I couldn't quite capture the brilliant color differences as well as I'd like, but here's a look. On the left it's purply-red in indoor lighting. On the right it's more of a blue-green in natural light.
 .

One dog and several flowers

It's not that the two subjects are related in any way; it's just these are the next batch of pictures from the camera.

Though Mandy likes food, it isn't her main motivator. She's easily distracted by - well just about anything. We call her our short-attention-span dog. Or said another way: she has the attention span of a gnat. But on this night Mandy was a good dinner-dog.


Continuing with the spring flower theme, and since today is the last day of spring, here is some more color from our yard.
 

 

Doggie Dash 2007 is Done

Saturday marked the 20th OHS Doggie dash and it was a great morning with no rain and LOTS of dogs. Thanks to everyone who helped us raise over $1000 for the Oregon Humane Society.

The turnout was a testament to Portland and Oregon's love for dogs. By our estimation there must have been over 2000 human participants and 1000 of the doggy variety at the Tom McCall Waterfront Park. There were big dogs and little dogs, oldster dogs and bouncy young dogs, pedigrees and lots of mutts and they were all wonderful.

We met a few dogs like Pearl the Bulldog and Joey the English Cocker Spaniel (or just Cocker Spaniel if you are outside the U.S.) And of course we took some pictures.
     

And we learned a few thing like the OHS is the third oldest in the country, having been founded 138 years ago. The dog adoption rate is 96% and the cat adoption rate is 80% much higher than the national average. Pretty impressive.

Check out the more doggy faces on TheHudsons site.

Thanks again to everyone who sponsored us!

Trees

It should come as no surprise that there are trees in Oregon. And it isn't as if we've never seen trees, but our experience in the previous 25 years to moving north was limited to what folks had in their yards.

Our walks continue and we added Tryon Creek State Park to the mix. Our first visit was on a less than dry day. Fortunately the forest canopy kept the most of the rain off.




Even the dead trees were interesting.




Tom had the camera...
  

It was a sunnier day on our next visit to Mary S. Young Park. Along one of the paths we saw a face.

Thursday Miscellany

The Boys
It was a lovely day Saturday, so we just took a quick walk around the neighborhood. When we arrived home and had "released the hounds" to go outside, we decided to just enjoy the day a little more. Cody likes being on Tom's lap...but only for a short while.
  

More flowers
You'd think I'd never seen flowers in my life...Here are some cool ruffly pepperminty tulips from the aforementioned walk.


And we arrived home to see yellow flowers hanging from a bush by our driveway. Tom says it flowered last year but all the flowers were inside.



Sasha Progress
Now that I've reached a milestone in the Sasha skirt, I think I'll pick up the Luna Shawl again. I need to leave something for the plane and airports.