I’ve missed the last few movie quizzes, but was back again for December. Greg and Renee joined the fun, and we held up the bottom third of the bracket like we usually do. We’re Battleship Cinematic Universe .
While many of the teams are regulars, some of the regulars tweaked their names to include a holiday theme. We didn’t think of that, but we’re ready for next year.
Cinema Toast Crunch was sitting in front of us. It was amazing to see how few questions they missed.
I wonder if team Very Good knew ahead of time how bad they would be?
The last round was anagrams, and that was Not Good. Hopefully they won’t be back for a while.
In late November, the TriMet Riders Club email advertised TriMet’s Ugly Christmas Sweater.
“That’s not ugly,” I thought to myself, “That’s a thing of beauty.” Soon after, I ordered.
Then, time passed. I wondered if I actually had ordered the sweater because I received no email. But then! A delivery notification saying the sweater had been shipped from Portland and would be delivered on Saturday, December 9, by 9 p.m. Wonderful! Deliveries are usually earlier than that, so it might be here in time for Heidi and Kevin’s Christmas Party.
But no. The time came to depart for the party, and no sweater was to be seen. It also hadn’t been delivered by the time we got home.
The tracking went dead for a few days, until one morning when I was told it was out for delivery! In Indianapolis, Indiana. A city that is not Portland.
Over the next week and change it would also travel to Detroit, Seattle, and then back to Portland. It arrived on Friday, December 20. I didn’t get to wear it to square dancing, work (when people were there) or out and about, but I did get to wear it to the Snow Ball Chorale and Christmas.
I posted this photo on Instagram, and someone commented, “Is that the TriMet Christmas sweater???” So clearly it was worth the wait.
The Snow Ball Chorale was also not a smooth landing. I invited people, most couldn’t go, but friend Kelly said she could go and bought a ticket. Then I let a few days go by, and when I went to get my ticket, it was sold out! I volunteered to buy Kelly’s ticket off her, because I didn’t mind going alone. Instead, she gave it to me.
Terrible organizer fail. I had a good time, though. And I liked wearing my sweater.
I’ve lived in Portland for twenty-three Christmas tree lightings and finally, on the twenty-fourth time, I attended.
While I didn’t love how many times they wanted us to clap for their sponsors (three times over the course of an hour; the sponsor names were prominently displayed around the stage; it felt like the sponsors were very needy) I did enjoy this evening of cheer and signing.
Good old Thomas Lauderdale loves a community sing along, and China Forbs loves to sing. We also got performances by a variety of choral groups.
There was a bouncing ball, and the person in charge of that had a hard job. The lyrics on screen didn’t always match up with what we were singing.
Santa came out to flip a massive light switch after we counted down from 10, and the tree was suddenly alight. I enjoyed that a few of the bulbs started to flash as we got closer to one, before the entire tree was ablaze.
Thanks to Pioneer Square (and their sponsors, of course) for putting together this community celebration.
I really loved this book. It was one of my favorites of the year. But this particular copy had a fun surprise.
At one point, Lena, the main character is at church, and a guest preacher explicitly says that if a woman wants a man, she needs to shape up and have a thin body. And a previous reader wasn’t having it.
There was one more comment.
Thanks, previous reader, for leaving your comments (on post-it notes). I left them there for the next reader to find and enjoy.
There is so much discussion of cats in this election. I’d rather hear about candidates plans to improve healthcare, but since I don’t get that, this poster made me laugh.
Scares and Squares is the Rosetown Ramblers annual fly-in. While I enjoy the dancing, it usually falls on my birthday weekend, and I don’t love that. However! this year they moved the weekend of dance to the second Saturday weekend, which was great!
Aside from really fun dancing, I volunteered for check-in on Saturday morning. Ted was running the 50/50 raffle and setting up ticket packs. I don’t remember the exact breakdown, but for the raffle, your dollar gets you 10 tickets, and five dollars gets you an even bigger number. So, to save time, Ted pulls out 10 tickets, separates the keep-this-coupon ticket from the drawing tickets, tears each drawing ticket, and then stacks the whole thing in a neat pile that is held together with a rubber band. That way, when someone hands over a dollar it’s very easy to hand them their half of the tickets, and drop the entry tickets in the bucket.
As we were both sitting at the same table, I also helped set up ticket packs. While we worked, we discussed the differences between the different colored rolls of tickets (they very much varied in quality!) and techniques for quicker packaging. As I observed to Matt, it was not unlike temping, where there is a boring task, but that task can be broken down into steps and those steps improved. Plus, Ted is fun to talk to.
At the Saturday evening dance, Ted came over to show me yet another satisfying part of the process: getting to the end of a ticket roll.
When I am in the office, I sit next to the lost and found. Today I noticed that someone had lost a sticker.
It is, of course, Alfredo Linguini and Remy the rat, stars of Ratatouille and Carmy Berzatto and the bear, stars of the Bear, the series that has most of the country saying, “Yes, chef!”
