For all you curious minds who have been wondering what I'm up to here in Portland....
ARCHIVES
Here's me!
Calendar!
02.11 Visit DeMara
02.22 Amory Lovins lecture
02.24-28 Mom visits!
03.11-13 Graham visits! (hopefully)
03.18-27 Spring Break
04.22 Earth Day!
Renegade Rose Morris!
www.renegaderose.org
Photos!
See all my Flickr photos
Quotes!
"We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered."
-Tom Stoppard, ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’
"To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s."
-Dostoevsky, ‘Crime and Punishment’
"We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily difference we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee."
-Marian Wright Edelman, ‘Families in Peril’
"If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal, - that is your success."
-Thoreau, ‘Walden’
Well, whaddaya know?
I got a Congratulations! letter in the mail today, for making the Dean's List for PSU's College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. Apparently "The Dean's list recognizes a select group of students within the college who have demonstrated superior academic achievement." Funny, I never got one of these letters from Stanford. :} I didn't even know PSU had a Dean's List, or that those things actually existed, so I was kind of puzzled at first. But it's kind of nice. :)
In less happy news, while doing some last packing at the apartment this afternoon, I received a $150 parking ticket for trying to squeeze into the only available tiny spot on the block close enough to carry boxes to the car from the apartment. I guess they really didn't know that I needed to be in that spot in order to load my car, and that I really tried to squeeze in and leave the sidewalk ramp clear (and practically all of it was clear), but I still thought it was very very rude of them to give me a ticket. Grrrrrrrr...... Hugo thought it was kind of interesting that he managed to get my truck towed while moving into the apartment, and I managed to get an expensive parking ticket while moving out of it. All in all, I think it's a good place to leave behind.
Monday, April 26, 2004
Pictures and license plates
I forgot to post the link to the OMSI pictures last night. If you want to see some dinosaurs, and a couple of pictures of Graham, go here
So, I received paltry few suggestions for car names when I put my poll out a few weeks ago. I've sort of been waiting until I got my license plates to really decide, hoping that the plates might give me a clue as to an appropriate name. I picked up the plates this afternoon, and unfortunately am still at a loss as to the car's name. The plate is: "ZZL 775". Any ideas? Graham and I were tossing a couple around, including Zelda (appropriate for the Z-ness of the license plate), Ingrid (which I'm voting against, since Kirsty has a friend named Ingrid and that would be kind of odd), Isis, and Sheba (both Graham's ideas). We came up with a lot more than that, but none that were really serious. Any opinions, anybody? I don't know why I'm having such a hard time naming this car! (If you want to take another look at the pictures, click here.
Sunday, April 25, 2004
Maiasauras and Mjadra
Well, Graham has gone back home after a lovely and enjoyable (at least on my part) weekend visit. On Saturday we went to OMSI, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. I had never been before, and it was definitely a worthwhile trip. The main exhibit was T.Rex On Trial, a dinosaur exhibit. It was very exciting. They also had tons of "brain-teaser" stations with all sorts of puzzles with blocks and rings and strings and things, some of which had us very confused for a very long time. After attempting one for about five minutes, I read the note below the instructions that said: "This puzzle has never been solved. Can you do it?" I quit trying. :)
After spending a few hours at OMSI, we went to Nicholas Restaurant for lunch. It's a small, rather crowded Lebanese/Middle Eastern restaurant that serves amazingly good food. We ordered the vegan Mezza (basically an appetizer platter) because it has one of my favorite dishes on it -- Mjadra, a rice and lentil dish with caramelized onions on top. It also came with tabouleh, bread and hummus, falafels, and a garbanzo bean dish that didn't have a name or a description in the menu, but was absolutely amazing. Oh, and we also ordered fresh-squeezed peach juice. The waiter warned us, "oh, the peach juice isn't vegan," so we explained that we weren't actually vegan, we just liked the selection on the vegan Mezza. :) We were completely stuffed when we left, and still had enough food left for a very filling lunch this afternoon.
Saturday night we went to the contra dance in Portland, where Kevin Carr and Barbara Mendelsohnn were playing. They were quite surprised to see Graham there, so that was fun. It was good to see them again, and always a joy to hear them play. The contra was very fun, and reminded me that I should attend more often. There were a lot of familiar faces, but a lot of new ones as well, making me realize that I've sort of dropped out of the contra community for a while. Anyway, it was fun.
Today was a mellow day. I sewed some more of my Renegade Rose waistcoat that's supposed to be done for May Day. I don't know if that's going to happen, but I'm certainly going to try. It's the buttonholes I'm not looking forward to. :) I took Graham to the airport and have been doing homework ever since. Hugo and Ellie are flying home from the Los Angeles Ale tonight, fortunately getting a ride from somebody else, arriving somewhere around 1:00 a.m., I'd imagine. They're both going to be totally wiped out by a long weekend of dancing and revelry, but it will be nice to have them home again.
