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.
Cat Saying, “No Thank You”
Tag: fun
Scares and Squares
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.
Funny Sticker in Lost and Found
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!”
A Potluck for Cake in St. Johns
Wandering around downtown St. Johns while waiting for my movie to start, I came across this flyer:
What a fun activity! If only I had known about it earlier.
I wandered by, and it looked like a pretty good turnout for the cakeluck.
The Movie Quiz 10-Year Anniversary
Matt, Greg, Renee, and I attended the 10-Year Anniversary Movie Quiz. We were excited to go because to celebrate the quiz’s long run, every team was guaranteed a prize.
As we are middling movie quizzees, this was our chance to win a prize.
I was hoping to score a Hallmark Keepsake Beatrice “Tris” Pior Divergent ornament. Mark the Quizmaster gives at least one of them away during every quiz. He jokes that they will probably be used as currency when the world ends.
We also had to identify Divergent from a film clip. I overthought it and guessed it was one of the later movies, so we even missed the Divergent question. (!)
We had a slow first round, and rallied a bit in the second round, but we were nowhere near the top three. Those winners got movie passes to the Hollywood Theatre and free movie rentals at Movie Madness. They also got first pick of the winning prizes. The prizes were stacked in the front of the theater, of various sizes, and all wrapped.
Mark told us that the theater asked us to open our prizes outside, so that we wouldn’t overburden the theater staff with extra cleaning duties.
Matt picked our prize, and it was book sized and squishy. It clearly wasn’t a Hallmark Keepsake Beatrice “Tris” Pior Divergent ornament. We guessed it might be a t-shirt as we exited the theater.
There, under the marquee lights, we unwrapped our prize in the company of other Movie Quiz prizewinners.
And we won a copy of Divergent!
Looking around at the other teams, we found that everyone, no matter the size of their prize, had also won a copy of the movie Divergent. “But some people got a Blu-ray,” a woman helpfully observed.
We all laughed, and I laughed more at the thought of Mark setting up this elaborate joke and also not being able to witness the payoff because he was still upstairs in the theater distributing prizes.
2024 Pride
I missed the Pride Parade last year as it coincided with my thirtieth high school reunion. But I’m back this year.
Here, you can see our vehicle. It was very well signaged, thanks to Gerry’s work.
Gerry and his partner Jason pose before we step off. Jason drove.
We had a great time dancing and walking the parade route.
Good Food on this Day
Whatever could this amount of butter be needed for?
Did you guess cinnamon rolls? You were correct.
Kinnamons has a bevy of cinnamon roll choices.
We didn’t sample any. We were looking for tea and a place to rest our feet as our walkabout the previous day had worn us out.
After the tea refreshed us, we checked out the shops on Alberta Street before heading to Urdaneta for dinner.
The tapas were delicious, and we ate a ton.
Quixote Nuevo at Portland Center Stage
Matt and I took in PCS’s Quixote Nuevo, and had a great evening of theater. The story transports Don Quixote to La Plancha, Texas, where a retired English professor with dementia heads off on a journey for his long-lost love.
Among the great performances and great songs there was also great puppetry. The cast of nine was kept busy with multiple roles, and the story was compelling.
Also, this was a co-production and traveled from the South Cost Repertory Theater in Costa Mesa, California, to the Seattle Repertory Theater and then ended its run in Portland. The set was designed to fit all three stages, and the actors worked for longer because of it. In a time when arts organizations are struggling, this seems like a brilliant plan.
Oscar Viewing Party at McMenamins
Though I have no photo proof, Friend Jessica and I attended McMenamin’s Oscar Viewing Party. It was good fun. As usual, I brought along my Happiest Oscar Viewer game, so we could pick who we wanted to win.
While I wasn’t happy for every category category I picked, I was thrilled that the Zone of Interest won best sound design (truly amazing) and that the Last Repair Shop won for Best Documentary Short.
Ruth Carter at the Tomorrow Theater
Famous costume designer Ruth Carter was scheduled to come to Portland in January, and I neglected to get a ticket and was sad. But it turned out that her visit coincided with the ice storm and didn’t happen, so she was rescheduled to March, and I did buy a ticket.
After finding my assigned seat (instead of the random seat I grabbed because I didn’t pick up on the fact there were assigned seats, even though I had picked my seat hen ordering the ticket (the Disney trip really overloaded me, and I had trouble navigating spaces for a few days after our return)) Ruth Carter appeared and was interviewed.
It was a great interview, and I learned a lot about her many Oscar nominations (she said that Black Panther was the first time she was favored to win and that the interview requests scaled up to match that favored status, so much so that she was exhausted by the time of the ceremony. Also that when they were making Black Panther, no one knew it was going to be as successful as it was, so midway through she lost half of her team to a different movie (that was a flop).
She also talked about working with Spike Lee and their long collaboration.
For those of you not able to see Carter in person, you can check out her book, The Art of Ruth E. Carter.