As always, I’m a fan of funny graffiti.
Which would you prefer?
Tag: fun
New Loo Ceremony.
The school took part in the First Flush ceremony for the newest Portland Loo. As usual, adding children to the mix was delightful.
Listening to the speeches.
Waiting to sing our songs
Tara is ready to lead the 4/5 chorus.
Randy Leonard talks.
After singing, (“New Loo” performed by the 4/5 chorus to the tune of “Blue Moon.” Also, “Skip to my Loo” by the entire school) we did the first flush by doing a massive “all school” push that began in the K/1 grade blend and traveled up through the grades. Each student carefully–for the most part–pushed the arm of the student next to them all the way to the end of the line…
…where Julie passed off the flush to Tara and she ran inside and pushed the button. This resulted in a great photo that was in the Saturday Community Section of the Oregonian. Sadly, the photo is not included with the web site article.
The Oregonian’s video (which sadly includes an ad) has a slide show and the Skip to My Loo song.
Hal Holbrook Mark Twain Tonight.
Hal Holbrook is 86 years old, a full sixteen years older than the 70-year-old Mark Twain he is portraying in this show. Using Mark Twain’s writings, Holbrook talked about this and that, and there was a lot of “the more things change, the more they stay the same” as Mark Twain had a lot to say about incompetent congress, incredibly wealthy fat cats and distrustful media.
Our Loo!
Have you heard of the Portland Loo? It’s a public toilet designed to avoid all the usual problems of public toilets. They’ve been pretty successful here, enough so that Portland is starting to sell them to other cities. Recently, the city has decided to install one in the North Park Blocks, directly across from the school at which I work. We are very excited about this because we are hoping it ends the practice of people using the playground or our parking lot as their bathroom. And today the loo is being installed!
There was a lot of preliminary work setting things up, but after that is done the loo itself is dropped into position. Here it is on the truck.
Hovering
Moving into position.
Almost there:
And, crack blogger that I am, I forgot to take a final picture. But you will see it when I show you the pictures from the First Flush ceremony, which will happen next week. In the meantime, look at the awesome design for the door on the loo. Apparently, each Loo’s door reflects the character of the area the Loo is located. The city asked the school children to create the design. We picked out a quote by Emerson and all the kids drew flowers. A selection of them were chosen and sent to the city and a woman came up with this fabulous design incorporating our flowers. We even got our own copy of the door to hang in our school, which is what you see here.
Do you want to read more about the Loo? Here’s an article from the Atlantic: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2012/01/why-portlands-public-toilets-succeeded-where-others-failed/1020/
Warm Tree
This jaunty red scarf provides just the right amount of je ne sais quoi for this sopping wet tree. Well accessorized!
This just in! She found the Peeps!
The ones I gave Aunt Pat last June. She just phoned. I was beginning to think they would never be found, but she said the birds don’t eat as much seed in the summer so she was just getting to the bucket. Now I have to be on alert. Where will the peeps turn up next?
What I want for Christmas
Smart Car wants people to drive them. So they set up on Broadway, right across the park from my work. I wandered over and got a test drive and a ten dollar gift certificate to the Pearl Bakery. They were fun to drive and now I know what you can get me for Christmas.
Only $12,000-$17,000 and you can make my wish come true.
Perk
There are a lot of good things about my job: I get full medical and dental benefits paid for, I get copious amounts of vacation, I get a reduced schedule during the summer and I enjoy the people I work with. But some of the best perks are the random gifts from children. In this case, Leo and Cian decided they wanted to make hot chocolate mix for all the teachers, etc. So they came around with order forms after school one day and we all placed our order. The next day I was greeted with a delightful package of homemade hot chocolate mix.
Complete with instructions and picture.
Here was my order form. “You can get more than one kind,” said Cian. So I checked two kinds. I got both kinds in one package. Altogether, salted caramel and peppermint work fairly well when combined.
Thanks Leo and Cian, for making my day.
Day of the dead
These little darlings are one of the children’s choirs at church. They had a Day of the Dead song to perform and dressed the part.
Mail mystery
I received a mysterious package in the mail on Saturday. It consisted of a DFTBA* sticker and five of the postcards pictured below. Where did it come from? The return address gave no clue, and I had no idea who would send me Nerdfighter material.
Nerdfighters are, of course the awesome fans of John and Hank Green, known as the Vlogbrothers. They fight to decrease world suck and increase awesome. I’ve spoken of them before in this post. This random package had certainly increased my awesome, but where did it come from?
I set it aside, pondering it now and then over a few days. Then the answer came. It was Shawn from Pike Schemes, knowing my fandom of Nerdfiteria, had randomly sent me some postcards.
Thanks Shawn. You must be a Nerdfighter too!
*Don’t Forget To Be Awesome! Which is a Nerdfighter’s slogan.