Monday, May 28, 2007

Street art

Katie's been doing some quick paintings and hanging them up around town. She posted one in front of our house:

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Found it!

YouTube has *everything*.
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The cemetary on the hill

Yesterday we all went up the hill to Mulkey Cemetary. It is very prettily situated at the top of a hill that at one time would have had beautiful views of both the coastal range and the Cascades, but now houses and yards are in the way. The House Bean spent some time weeding and helping solve a flagpole problem, and I chased the kids around and tried to keep them from removing all the flags and flowers from the gravesites.
Later in the afternoon we went to the Buddha-Q at Horton Road Organics, and hung out with a bunch of Zendo folk at the farm. Didn't bring the camera for that one. We bought shares at the farm for this season, so we'll know exactly where our vegetables are coming from, as well as the people who grew them. It is a very peaceful place in a little valley in the coastal mountains. Unfortunately, it is looking like the hill behind the farm will be clearcut this summer. Number Two Son had a blast running all over the place. He was right at home. It is really too bad that I didn't have the camera to get a shot of him taking a ride on a hand truck that he pulled out and brought to me. Next time.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

What a rotten week

...which I won't go into the details of. But here's what I found this morning as "comfort viewing." Bobby Burgess and Barbara Boyland dancing to "Calcutta" on the Lawrence Welk show in 1961.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

NOD's solo



NOD has been in a few dance classes at Parks & Rec this year. I don't get to take her, since I'm at work when she goes, but the House Bean took a couple of videos this week for me.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Wall o' Ribbon


Wall o' Ribbon
Originally uploaded by pangolina.
Last weekend I finally got the chance to go to Mindy's, the needlework store over at the 5th Street Market. It really is a treasure of a store, not just because she has *every* kind of embroidery floss you could ever dream of, but also because of this Wall of Ribbon. Unfortunately, I only had my phone camera with me at the time, so I couldn't really do it justice.

Saturday, May 05, 2007

We went to the animal fair

To celebrate my birthday week, I took the day off yesterday and we went up to Portland to the Oregon Zoo. We also stopped off at the Japanese Gardens on the way up the hill. NTS is at a really great age - He recognizes animals, and when he sees them (it doesn't matter what kind of animal it is) he growls, "Rarrr, rarrr!" He spent quite a lot of time with the lion-dogs at the entrance to the Japanese Gardens:

Then, we did the zoo. The Oregon Zoo has a brand-new exhibit on the animals of the Northwest; there are bobcats and black bears, cougars, river otters, salmon and trout. It is very well done as a walk through the woods with a bridge that is evocative of the bike/pedestrian bridges that are across the Willamette River in just about every town here.

The latest trends in zoo exhibit design are "habitat islands" that let the visitor get the feeling of really walking amongst the animals (they've done a great job with this at the new entrance to the San Francisco Zoo), and big glass windows that allow you to stand right next to the animal and get an up-close look. In several cases, they've made one of the walls of the animal's den out of glass. We got to get up close to the bobcat and the cougar that way. Later on, the kids got to visit the Oregon Zoo's oldest inhabitant, this female Orangutan who has been there since 1961:

Later, we were lucky enough to stumble onto the flight practice for the bird show that will be opening in June. This was the first time they've had the birds out to fly this season. It hadn't occured to me that a bird could get out-of-shape from not flying, but *doh*! Of course! I only hope they fly a little higher when there's a full audience out there:
That's a Red-Tailed Hawk. Here's a brief movie of her flying from the stage to the back perch:


We also got to see the Turkey Vulture fly. She was supposed to fly from the stage to the middle perch, then to the back perch. However, she was very interested in the bits of cut up mouse that were on the stage from feeding the other birds, and so she kept just flying back to the stage:


But why were Wayne and Charlie sitting in the garbage can?


Also, Hippopatabutts:


We got stuck in rush-hour traffic leaving Portland, decided not to try to get out to I-5, and took some other highway out of town. Saw the Blues Brothers in Sherwood:


We stopped in Salem to have some dinner and wound up at a very good Indian place. But we had to stop and take a picture of the Capitol Building. They must have hired Mormon architects, because this place just plain looks like it should be the Salem Temple (For examples of what I mean, go here and here). Even has a golden Moroni/logger on the top. He's facing Missouri the long way around.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Dark times

I know it's getting bad again when I start getting Sweeney Todd lyrics in my head.