Month: May 2014

Great Aunt Betty’s Obit.

This is one of my grandmother’s younger sisters.
Elizabeth Jane Whitmore MacDougall
October 15, 1920 – April 8, 2014
Betty was born in Portland to Helen (Hawes) and Raymond Whitmore, the sixth of 15 children.  Betty is survived by her children Dolores (Woods) Veenendaal and Dwayne Woods. 
To Betty, family was life’s most important gift and she loved them all.  She enjoyed family occasions both big and small.
“Grannie” aka “The Great One” was thrilled to welcome her grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren.
Betty was a retired meat wrapper.  She was a skilled seamstress and ceramic painter.  She loved to crochet, a skill she learned from her mother.  She enjoyed gardening and having flowers in her backyard.  She also grew berries to make jam for her great-grandchildren.
Betty’s memorial will be a party serving her favorite foods, chocolate, ice cream, Sprite and coffee.  All family and friends are welcome.

Three sentence movie reviews: The Lego Movie

This was a second viewing for me (a first for Matt) and I found the movie just as funny upon repeat viewing.  We miscalculated, and attended a screening with very many children, which is always informative, learning about the parenting practices of today.  However, everyone settled down once the movie got going and Everything [was] Awesome by the end.

Cost:  $4.00 (McMenamins has finally raised their prices)
Where watched:  Kennedy School.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2014/lego_movie_ver12.html

Three sentence movie reviews: Brokedown Palace

I got this movie only because a friend told me that ever since she saw it, she fears that a cockroach has climbed into her ear.  Besides that tidbit, I was pleasantly surprised to find such a solid story of female friendship and tough choices.  It included top-notch acting all around and I highly recommend it.

Cost:  free from library
Where watched: at home

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1999/brokedown_palace.html

PS.  Totally passes the Bechdel test!  So exciting!

Oregon Humanities Dear Stranger has a quick turn around.

I participated in Oregon Humanities first Dear Stranger project where you write a letter to a stranger (the theme was “me”) send it to Dear Stranger at Oregon Humanities with a SASE. They shuffle the letters and send you one, theoretically from another part of the state.  I got my letter in right before the May 5 deadline, but I was still surprised to find a letter in my mailbox on May 9.  
My letter was not from someone in Oregon, it was from a student in Wisconsin who was writing the letter as part of a college assignment.  She also did not include a return address, so that was unfortunate.  Still, I enjoyed the mail and hope that the person who got my letter will write me back.  I really need more pen pals.  
If you are interested in participating in Dear Stranger in August, sign up for the Oregon Humanities newsletter.

Rush Ticket! The Last Five Years

I bought my first rush ticket to see this two-person musical about the beginning, middle and end of a relationship.  The musical begins from the woman’s perspective as the relationship is ending, and from the man’s as the relationship is beginning.  They cross in the middle and by the end of the play, the woman is at the beginning of the relationship and the man at the end.
My rush ticket cost $20.00 and I highly recommend stopping by Portland Center Stage and asking how the process works, if you aren’t familiar.  They were very nice.
Also, this musical will be a movie soon.  It comes out later this year.

Can we not do something about this?

This is from an interview with Charles Cross about Kurt Cobain.
I want our country to be better at catching all the lost people who get to a place where the only way they can function in the world is by using drugs.  I want us to help people dealing with the kind of problems Kurt Cobain had.  We’re a rich country.  There’s no way we should be letting people slip through the cracks like that.

An after school walk

Home from Overlook Park, though Overlook, Arbor Lodge and Kenton neighborhoods.
Swirly parking strip.

Gnarly old trees in Overlook.
TARDIS
Gorgeous yard and cottage.
Precise hedge.
Telephone booth peeking over a hedge.
On the fence in that same yard is the “Poem Booth.”
My favorite secret way to cross a busy street.
Burning bush among the strawberries.
Stairs being overtaken.
Retaining wall overtaken.
A nice swoop and orange trim.
This home does not fit in at all, and is tremendously ugly, but I love it for those two reasons.
In the side yard of the tremendously ugly home are many wood crafted signs.
This bungalow went and grew a big backside in the Omaha woods.
Kind of looks like a dead cat, but was actually a very happy warm cat.

Victorian with a stellar paint job.
Check out the detail on the door.

Can I make it through this alleyway?

It was okay until I found myself completely surrounded by blackberry bushes.
I made it through, though can’t recommend it.

Sorting the letters.

Along with the journals, the letters from the first two years of college were recovered.  They are all a jumble and I’m sorting them.  I have another tub of letters which I went though a few years ago, so I hope to get everything in neat piles of people.  It’s been fun to see what I can find.  They are especially nostalgic because after my first two years of college I got an email account. Though the letters still arrived, it wasn’t with the same frequency.  All of that early electronic communication has been lost and I mourn it.  That makes these letters all the more wonderful to read now.