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| For whatever reason, this hackberry tree fell across the road around the corner from us on a sunny, windless day. Papa Tom is talking with a neighbor and her dog Lydia. |
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| The hackberry was growing in the front yard of the house that's for sale. Tree Realty knows how to make you stop and look! |
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| Micah and Otis have set up a basketball goal at their house. The bone markings are a tribute to Micah's roommate Sarah, who recently broke her femur. One of the bones not visible in this photo is "broken." Here is Otis's over-the-shoulder throw. |
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| Micah demonstrates how to levitate a basketball. |
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| On Saturday night, LaWanda and I attended the Bloom Beauty Collective fashion show. |
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| The show featured local designers and local musicians. |
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| The musicians performed on the runway while models strutted in designer fashions. |
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| Otis had his party at a community center where the kids played an hour of basketball before birthday donut time. That's high flying Otis. |
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Micah brought back bubble letters for the party. Bubble letter invention is attributed to Lonny Wood aka Phase 2, who began using versions of the form in 1972 as graffiti on NYC subway cars.
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| Otis is keeping up with game scores. |
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| Otis and me |
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| The origin of birthday donuts v. birthday cake? Happy 14, Micah! Mya, River, and Piper also have birthday donuts. |
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| Otis wanted birthday donuts from Portland's famous Voodoo donuts. |
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| Yikes! See the scary voodoo vine behind me? Watch out, Shanana/Mia! |
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| Checking out a maple-glazed donut before the party |
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| Happy birthday, Otis! The community center party planner must know Otis likes the Trail Blazers, what with the red and black theme. |
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| The four of us had dinner together at the HomeAway and cheered for the Trail Blazers too, to no avail. Next year . . . . |
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| Maybe they lost because Micah wasn't cheering? He slept through all but the last minute of Saturday's game. |
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| Margaritaville in Portland |
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| LaWanda, Otis, and Micah |
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| Elevator man. "Otis" is above his head. |
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| Checking out the Xbox One at the Microsoft store, with the ghost feet across the way. |
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| Lunch across the street at Chipotle. |
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| Julie Olson and her husband Ron own the parsonage, where we stayed, and the church. Here she is in her kitchen. The church was sold to hippie artists in the 1970s and was a gutted shell when she bought it in 1991. Before buying the church, she lived in Morocco for 25 years, where her line of clothing was produced. She brought furniture and architectural pieces such as doors home with her. The Moroccan government no longer allows such artifacts to be removed from the country. |
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| Ron is the only person I've ever met who was actually at Woodstock in 1969! These are camel doors. Ron explained that the doors were opened when camels needed to get through the streets. Otherwise, the doors remained as seen for people to pass through. |
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| View of the living room from what was the choir loft. See the church windows on the right? |
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| No bats in the belfry, just a bath, up a set of steep stairs. |
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| Moroccan bar and chairs |
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| The Portland HomeAway was amazing. The owners bought a church and parsonage 27 years ago to create very special spaces in tribute to the 25 years they spent in Morocco. We stayed at the former parsonage; the couple lives next door in the renovated church, now a 5,000-square foot residence. |
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| Rhododendrons were in bloom. |
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| Nook off the upstairs bedroom overlooks the living room and dining room. All the light is natural, from skylights over the downstairs rooms. |
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| One of my former SOAH co-workers fosters monarch butterflies. She shared five caterpillars with us. See how tiny they are? |
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| One week later, they're happily munching milkweed in the butterfly habitat. |
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| A couple of days later, we had a chrysalis. We now have three chrysalides (plural of chrysalis) with two more spinning today. |
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| We discovered a wound on Zephyr's hind leg. She wouldn't leave it alone. Hence the cone. She managed to get a front leg through the cone. Not happy. |
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| The worse part was having to stay indoors for several days. She's plotting. |
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| After missing the opportunity for some great photos at the Devil's Backbone Tavern, due to low light, I decided to get a phone with a great camera. After watching YouTube videos of phone comparisons, and speaking with a knowledgeable person at Consumer Cellular, I opted for the Samsung Galaxy S10+. A loud knock at the door by our mail carrier heralded the dawn of blog photos with more clarity and truer colors. Shanana/Mia is very happy! Above is a photo with the Samsung. |
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| The same photo from the same spot with my 5-year-old Moto G. The Samsung has a wider angle. |
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| The Samsung even captures moving basketball players. |
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| The Moto G cannot focus on moving people or objects. |
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| The Samsung captures more detail when the subject is backlit. Notice the gorgeous green of the leaves on Tommy 2. The camera even caught light on the ceiling, and the divan color is true. |
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| I was standing in the same spot when I took the photo with the Moto G. I still have a lot to learn about composition. But, as Papa Tom and I have noted many times, having the right tools to get a job done makes all the difference. Not to say I haven't used a high heel to hammer a nail and a nail file to tighten a screw. ;-) |
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| Zephyr peacefully snoozed while the Golden State Warriors beat the Rockets in Game 7 of the semifinals. We were hoping the championship game would be Trail Blazers v. Rockets. Come on Blazers! Win Game 7 against the Nuggets on Sunday! |
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| Fluffy aka Marilyn has gotten way more trusting and friendly with us. She even comes inside sometimes. |
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| We received our first box of organic fruits and vegetables from Imperfect Produce on Friday. The company rescues some of the 20 billion pounds of fruit and veggies that go to waste on farms every year, oftentimes because the produce is too small, slightly blemished, or misshapen enough to be rejected by standard grocery stores. So far, Imperfect Produce has saved 40 million pounds of food, donated 2.2 million (to food banks?), resulting in saving 1.2 billion gallons of water and 110 million pounds of carbon dioxide. We're trying. On Mondays, we select what will be delivered on Fridays, and can skip weeks if we want to. |
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| What do you think? I had the broccoli at lunch and it was fresh and delicious. |
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| Do you see the very hungry caterpillar on our tomato plant? And Zephyr's legs? |
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| In our ongoing quest for baskets full of homegrown tomatoes, we patrol for caterpillars and usually find them every morning. Sigh. One caterpillar can strip so many leaves from a tomato plant in one night! |
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| Happy 37, Micah! |
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| The house where Micah and Otis live, as drawn and painted by Micah. |
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| Happy 11, Otis! Remember how the rest of us were bundled up and freezing whereas you couldn't get enough of the icy air and the ocean? (Photo at Haystack Rock in December 2018). |
