pink petals

Hello, blog - here are some spring petals.

errands

So, Monday (yesterday) I walked up to the vet to pick up more of Busby's expensive special food. This is what the sky looked like. Fortunately (for me, I don't think it affected the fortunes of anyone else), I LOVE walking in unpredictable weather. I had my raincoat and my iPod and that's all I need. (and $$$ because cat food.) 

Hey, look what I found  - some little house and big tree getting bulldozed to be replaced by a giant Mission-style McMansion! These houses take up almost the entire lot and there's just a little sliver of yard in the front and back. Maybe they have an atrium in the middle, but I doubt it. (They're big enough that they could, though!) Portland is growing a lot right now and housing in inner NE (where this is) and SE is at a premium. It's gross to me how expensive these houses are and how ugly and out of proportion the apartment buildings that are cropping up all over are. But, I recognize that there are a ton of people moving here and if we don't want to have suburbs sprawling all the way to the ocean this is what's going to happen. Better regulations are in order, though! Vote in your local elections, everyone - it matters! 

Left side

right side. 

This is right off of Fremont - a mixed-use apartment building will go here, I think. At least with this project they're "deconstructing" which means instead of bulldozing old buildings they're taking things apart to be used later by someone else. This is probably to avoid dagger eyes from all neighbors, but no matter the reason I'm glad they're doing something other than just trashing what was here before. 

CEMETERY DETOUR! I hadn't actually entered the cemetery from this particular side entrance and I didn't have anywhere to be so I thought WHY NOT?! and as soon as I was in a fair way the skies opened up and the rain came dumping down. You can't really make it out in this phone picture, but it was coming down hard! Very pleasant walk, though. I will go back and further investigate. 

Once I finally got my rain jacket zipped up all the way, the rain stopped and the sun came out. I include this picture because I like the yellow house, dark sky, and VAN. This is another little street right off the main drag - how many years before most of these small houses are also giant McMansions? Maybe it never happens! I don't know. I'm not a housing prognosticator. 

stuck in my head ALL DAY

"Queen Bitch" 1972 from David Bowie on Vimeo.

How does it work for you when a song gets stuck in your head? For me, it can go a few different ways. Today it was little snatches of it here and there until it held together and my brain would basically play the whole song. Other times it's just a particular part over and over - the shorter the bit the more annoying the earworm. Sometimes it is brief but super intense. Sometimes it's a CLUSTER of songs. I should keep a log. I know this one was particularly strong because more than one person at work was talking about very earworm-friendly songs and none of them dislodged Queen Bitch. I didn't mind.

mossy

This is moss! (In case you are from a moss-free zone and were wondering "is this some kind of weird grass?")

I'm working my way up to actually writing something. Signs point to maybe.

hot hot orange

Orange turn of the kaleidoscope

The internet is stressing me out, so I thought 'hey Jen, why not visit your old friend YOUR BLOG' so here I am even though this is also the internet.  

a return and an exit

I told myself I had to either write emails or make a blog post, so HERE I AM. Sorry all emailers!

recent things:

I quit Comcast! Not one reason in particular - but I think it could be reduced correctly to, as a long-term customer, too much $$ and not enough service. The Internet led me to believe that this would be a torturous phone call where I would almost certainly have to yell or cry, but I didn't. The guy I talked to was nice and tried to talk me out of it (and I let him try for a little while - why not?) but was not a jerk when I stuck to my guns. Likewise returning equipment at the Comcast office was easy. IN FACT, by not being the total garbage monsters I feared,  it's possible I would consider doing business with them in the future. Anyway. I know it sounds dumb to say this was hard, but this was hard. I had to change email addresses on a million things (I had comcast mail before gmail ever existed), etc. but I think it's mostly done now. Whew!





What else has been going on? Everything and nothing like always. I'm still happily working for the library. Like anywhere, there are people and situations that make me think I'm losing my mind, but for the 99% most part, I love it.

Something else I love - this APP that makes double exposures of your pictures. IT'S SO FUN. I have a million of these and it's all I can do to not post them all. For .99 you can get the watermark to go away, but you can use it for free with some ads. (This photos is yellow raspberries + some giant tree in the forest+ a koolaid color scheme and it makes me giddy in a very specific way.) It will combine randomly or you can compose your exposures. I like the randomness factor, but I think you can have fun with it however you like.

TIME FOR BED. I'm reading a book that I want to get back to: Bellwether by Connie Willis. It was written in the 90s and the main character  (Sandy Foster) studies fads. So interesting! The guy (Bennett O'Reilly) whom the author goes to great lengths to describe as having no style at all in his too short corduroys, canvas sneakers, and wildly patterned shirts (compared to the nikes+ bomber jacket + jeans of the "cool guys") would be unquestionably fashionable in 2015 Portland Oregon. Fickle fashion!

summer things

HELLO AUGUST!

So far August is hot and humid
and let's say d r y
busy but also vacation
ETC.

SOME AUGUST THINGS:

• I ordered a mattress from the internet and I love it. (old mattress was like trying to go to sleep but instead having a tiny monster made of springs softly punch me with its rock fists.) More on this in the future, in case you also have a mattress monster punching you with rock fists. 
• that panorama beach picture above that doesn't quite fit is from July.
• I've been listening to Rock Steady by No Doubt for the first time in ages.  SO MANY HITS. 

TOMATO TIME. They're coming on heavy right now. It's at least this many every other day.




Pretty little butterfly that came to visit. I like to think it's because of my bee/butterfly watering station, but let's be honest: it's probably the flowers.

Bee/butterfly watering station: take a dish (I used a regular old terra cotta flower pot saucer) fill it with rocks (I used agates and jasper and whatever else I dragged home from the beach) and then fill it with water! The rocks give those bees/butterflies a place to stand to get a drink. I'm having to rescue fewer bees from the birdbath! Downside: the cat LOOOOVES drinking from it so I have to fill it up at least twice a day. But it makes me feel good to do something for these little guys in this punishing heat.

hens and chicks

I just realized that the cute little white border I put on this picture is useless with my white background. Oh well. This is a hen and chick plant (sempervivum tectorum)  in bloom. It's awfully pretty, but the blooms are not actually a great sign  - the plant flowers before it DIES. I think that just means the individual hen, though. Anyway - these are in a pot and too crowded so that's probably the issue. Why not go out with a bang? They're beautiful. 

ANYWAY. In book news, I'm still reading The Sisters about the Mitfords. It has been Mitford city around here - talking about it at work (it's for book group AT work), looking up Mitford pics on the internet, etc. What are you reading? Oh! I've also been listening to the audiobook version of a Rivers of London book. I'm so far behind on my reading challenge for this year I'm forgoing podcasts and listening to books while I tend to the garden, etc. It's so easy to download them from the library! 

artificial mystery flavor

1. Today was the Junior Rose Festival parade! It's the oldest/largest children's parade in the country, and it goes right by my work. I got to watch a bit of it from a great vantage point in the meeting room while we waited for meeting attendee #4, who got stuck in a parade morass and never made it. (He was warned but did not heed the warning! HEED IT, PEOPLE. It's all fun and games until someone gets stuck behind a pack of 4th graders on unicycles.)
2. 
   
3. this picture is from I don't even know when but I took it, I like it, I'm using it. 
4. I'm playing around with the numbers feature here. I don't like it all bunched together, so there may be some blank space.
5. or not.
6. 
   
7. I left work an hour early today due to incipient migraine. The weather has been whipsawing back and forth between bright/warm and cloudy/rain/cold. In either state my head is fine, it's just when it's moving from one to the other that I have problems.  I am having many problems this spring. 
8. I'm reading a book about the Mitford sisters called, strangely enough, The Sisters. It's SO DENSE and slow going, but totally enjoyable. Things are picking up now that the sisters are old enough to start having disreputable affairs and shocking politics. 
9. It's for book group. 

blooming like whoa

Maybe as I get back into this, I can sneak in a new habit like, say, not waiting till midnight to start! The iris are blooming like WHOA in the garden right this very minute, although this picture is from Saturday.

dinosaur days

hellooooooo

Greetings from my dinosaur friend and also from me.

Flickr has done another big update which makes it easier for me to find GEMS LIKE THIS from my photos. I look forward to posting more of them. In the meantime, let's make up stories about what dinosaur friend is doing. I think she's from dinosaur island and is breathing out a giant cloud to confuse shorter, non cloud-breathing dinosaurs who were making a bad argument about something important to tall dinosaurs.

long week

Missed some days! It's been busy and I've been tired. (translation: I am obsessed with a dumb hidden object game.) It's not all been hidden object games, though. This week has included a lot of fun extracurriculars, but if I ever needed proof or reminders that I'm an introvert who needs time to just chill out,  this week has provided it! (I never needed proof or reminders, but I guess it's reassuring to confirm what I already knew?) I left the house exactly once today and it was LOVELY to just stay in and be quiet. (translation: sing along badly to my ipod.) Anyway - I work again Saturday and then two days off!! Woooooooo!!!!! 

this picture is from almost exactly one year ago - I had Absolute Sandman vol. 1 checked out from the library and snapped this picture to mark my place between a bunch of very similar photos I was taking for my etsy shop. 

mountain time

Is it gross bad manners to post a picture of a sunny day when so much of the country is iced and snowed? If so, I apologize. I had to go to a short (SUPER BORING) meeting today in the Multnomah Building, but the plus side of it all was I got to be outside when I would normally be inside and it was AMAZING. This is from the sky bridge connecting the Multnomah Building to its parking lot. 

And here's what it looks like facing the other direction - the onramp to the Hawthorne bridge and a partial view of downtown. Why do you suppose that guy is walking backwards on the bridge in the bike lane buffer? Why not use the sidewalk? I just noticed him now. Anyway. Time for bed! I stayed up wayyyyy to late last night watching Key & Peele videos on youtube. (Read the Zadie Smith profile of them in the New Yorker - it's really good!) 

videos on boats is what we need!

Yeah, I heard this on the new Android commercial and I LOVED IT and looked it up and here it is.

< 3 u, eyepatch guy

it makes me happy. 

spangled

Just a spangly picture for tonight.