[sharonpdx]

friday 5's: it's been awhile

I was looking through my blog archives yesterday and I came across my old Friday 5's posts from last year - man,  I can't believe I forgot about those!  If you're new to Friday 5's, here's how it works: I tell you five things that made me happy this week, and then you tell me five things that made you happy this week.  (I like to keep things simple on Friday afternoons.)

Without further adeiu,  Friday 5's for 11.14.08:

1.   Scoring an A- on my first back-to-school paper (for my Principles of Training & Development class).   [I wanted an A+, naturally, but I'll take anything in the A range.]

2.  Peanut butter & jelly.  Not the sandwich - the amazing dessert at Noble Rot.  We had dinner & wine there Monday to celebrate LT's birthday early (Doug had to go out of town this weekend and is missing her actual bday celebration tonight), and the entire meal was delicious - but this dessert, oh wow: peanut butter bread pudding, marionberry jam, and peanut butter ice cream.  be still my tastebuds - so, so good.

3. Seeing the Dark Knight again, this time at Laurelhurst ($3 tix!) - I so totally dig that movie!

4.  Craft night at BT's!  He made some delicious chili, there were a bunch of super cool people I hadn't met before all engaged in different crafts, and I even got a little bit knitting done.  Looking forward to this Sunday's "crafternoon" at Naomi's, too!

5.  Being Franchesca's guest at Grandparents & Special Friends Day @ Woodstock Elementary again this year (here's 2007's event) - seriously, few things make me feel more special than to have my dear third-grade friend invite me to this event.  [Check this out: They were in gym when the event started, and I was super impressed to learn that she can climb to the top of the rope!]

  

friday 5's: escape.

the name of the game last weekend was: get out of the city.  or, more precisely, get sharon out of the city.  not having a car has many, many points in the "pro" column - reduced environmental impact, no costs associated with gas, or parking, or insurance, or maintenance - but the end result is, i don't get out of portland proper much.

we headed east on 84 and stopped to check out Mulnomah Falls, and to watch the kite surfers on the Columbia.  then we headed south on Hwy 35, the Hood River County "Fruit Loop": a scenic drive along Hwy 35 that boasts 30+ farms, orchards, and wineries.  We stopped at Rasmussen Farm and Mt Hood Winery, and pulled over at the side of the road to stick our feet in Hood River before heading up to Mt. Hood [where I hadn't been since my snowboarding adventures last February].

so, for this week's friday 5's, i present to you five favorite photos from last saturday's escape.

1. multnomah falls

2.  rasmussen farm

3, 4, & 5.  hood river.

 

---

this weekend's plans are more indoor - i signed up through 24 Hour Fitness to take group exercise instructor training.  i'll be in class for 4 hours Saturday & Sunday mornings for the next two weekends.  oh, and this Saturday night: roller derby.  [watching, not doing.  yeah right, i wish.]

happy weekend.

friday 5's: the "goodbye holly" edition

Holly is moving to Michigan, to pursue her graduate degree at the University of Michigan and to continue her work as a labor & delivery nurse at the hospital at U of M. 

we will miss her very, very much.

last night, we got together to say goodbye at one of Holly's favorite PDX haunts, Blue Moon.  Doug did a great job of making us all laugh as he snapped this same photo of us with three different cameras - but, there were tears, after.

Holly's one of the originals of "the crew," the "subculture of Joe," the group of us who met on New Year's Eve.  she & i hit it off immediately, sitting at a table and chatting while the rest of the folks at the meetup hung out at the bar or did whatever else it was they were doing.  i learned that night that she was a traveling nurse, and that she spent only about three months in each place she worked before moving on to another.   

like i said last night, Hol- i wasn't even supposed to get more than three months with you.  instead, i got nearly nine.  which makes it harder, i guess, because i got closer to you than i expected...  and i know that staying in PDX for all this time made it easier for you to make friends and just that much harder to leave.  but i wouldn't have missed this for anything. 

so, in light of all of this, today's 5's are the top five things I want to say to Holly:

1. i'm going to miss our trips to oba - you: pomegranate mojito, me: white cranberry cosmo.

2, that purse you bought at REI last week is really, really you, and i'm so glad you didn't return it.

3. you are way too nice for your own good.

4. i am so, so lucky i met you.

5. you can do this.

 

the return of friday 5's

as you've probably figured out by now, friday 5's is just an excuse for me to post whatever i want to say in a way that is self-limiting.  [in that it forces me to stick with the events of the past week or so.  oh and yeah, the whole "five" thing.]

1.  this week marked the start of the BTA's month-long bike commute challenge - and my very first week commuting by bike.  doug & i did a test run on Monday to prepare, riding from my apartment to my office and back; along the way he led me into an empty parking lot to work on shifting gears.  [i know, right?  totally sweet.]  turns out, biking to work is infinitely more fun - and also faster - than my usual commute on the light rail.  and, as i'd hoped, it's increased my confidence to bike further and to places i haven't test run before - in fact, doug worked out a fantastic bike map to show me the route to my kayak lesson tomorrow morning.  that's going to be so much nicer than the bus.

2.  the Labor Day weekend party at Emmy & Jon's Sunday night was a ton of fun.  and something that hasn't been true all summer suddenly was: every one of us who met on New Year's Eve [& still hang out] was at the same place at the same time.  DJ was kind enough to snap a few pics to celebrate the occasion.

     

3. oh and how much do i love this pic of  Lauren, Holly, & I?  [answer: about as much as i do not love that Holly is moving in less than 2 weeks.]

4.  these "sidewalk crop" pants by lucy are the best pants in the history of pants ever.

found them [in grey] when i stumbled on lucy's sidewalk sale with tif during our epic shopping adventure on Saturday and have worn them every single day since, on and off my bike. [we also hit the new Ikea, and the Bee & Thistle's grand re-opening in the Pearl - oh and we both took advantage of the REI Labor Day sale and picked up these sandals for 30% off.  score.]

5.  i was thrilled when doug told me they were showing Labyrinth at the Hollywood Theater in NE Portland.  we saw it with zach & janelle on weds night and,  seriously? David Bowie + 1986 = yum. 

and... lookie there: it's the weekend!  enjoy it.

{friday 5's for - holy crap, it's already august 3rd.}

friday 5's began, you'll recall, as a list of things that made me happy in the seven preceding days.

this week, i'm posting five things i just wanted to share with you.

1.  broken english is a beautiful film.  parker posey is entirely believable and [dare I admit it?], uncomfortably, spot-on relatable.  nothing nearly so fun as her Blade role, but instead deep and meaningful and moving in a way that makes me glad kynthia was the person i saw it with.  the film has stayed with me since monday night... as has the gripping desire to go somewhere, anywhere, that requires a passport.  immediately.

2.  kayaking on the willamette is a good way for me to 1. connect with my life-long love affair with water within the context of my new hometown; 2. channel sadness, anger, and fear into complete and total focus on stroke form and control of a long, skinny boat against strong current and wind; and 3.  see the city skyline from a whole different perspective.  it's hard -good hard - and yet, peaceful.  and i intend to do it again very soon. 

3.  to be successful in your quest to make abortion illegal, you will need to have a better answer to this question:  "what should the penalty be?"  honestly, the activists interviewed in the video seem to believe that if abortion is made illegal, no one would have any anymore.  hey, worked for murder, and drugs, and driving while intoxicated, right? 

How Much Jail Time?  by Anna Quindlen, in Newsweek

Libertyville Abortion Demonstration [referenced in article] - You Tube

i would hope that anyone prepared to leverage judgment on this matter would be prepared to tell a woman to her face that she should serve 25 years in prison [the mandatory minimum sentence for murder in Oregon]. 

4. dinosaur comics are funny.

5.  this restroom signs flickr pool on flickr.com will interest tiffanie greatly, as she has this obsession with signs, and bathroom-related signs in particular.

although it was my suggestion that she snap a photo of this sign, at the Oregon Zoo last Saturday:   

please make your wish on a star, folks.  and have a pleasant Friday.

p.s.   mom, dad, & erica, safe travels to maui tomorrow.   enjoy your vacation - and send me a pineapple!  i'm serious!  please?

{friday 5's: the july 20th edition}

wow, this whole friday thing really snuck up on me.  it's been a strange week.   but, I can still find 5 things that made me happy!

1.  the somewhat sneaky, self-satisfied smile on doug's face as he walked up to the table tif & i were sharing at Brazen Bean last Saturday night and watched the light dawn on me as I realized, "hey - that guy not only looks like the guy who is supposedly still in Massachusetts right now, but actually is that guy."  a very, very nice surprise. 

2. high tea at the Heathman Hotel with Heidi's daughter, Francesca, last Saturday was a real treat for me - and a great way for the two of us to celebrate her eighth birthday.

 

3. the movie Pan's Labyrinth is really, really good.  to enjoy it like i did, watch it with someone you like a whole lot, while eating greek yogurt & fruit parfaits. 

4. Kynthia.  She just made me happy this week, on several occasions.  Plus, she remembered Alan Rickman's name, after I racked my brain for it for hours. 

5. the new Harry Potter film, The Order of the Phoenix: my favorite HP film so far.  seen with good friends and smuggled-in Junior Mints. 

speaking of Pottermania: tonight, Tif & I will be at this: http://powellsbooks.com/potterparty/.  happy friday.

{friday 5's for friday the 13th}

TGIF!  all I can say about this week is: it was a long one.  and a hot one.   so, because no one likes to stand around and wait in the heat, i'll just jump right in.  welcome to the not-very-spooky Friday-the-thirteenth edition of Friday 5's, where I list 5 things that made me happy this week. 

#13. girls-only brunch at Mother's Bistro last Sunday: Emmy, Heidi, Sharon, Holly & Tif.  For some reason, most of us look like we had a really late Saturday night...  but, Em looks well rested.  Maybe that's because she fell asleep on her couch at 1o'oclock p.m.  I know.  I was there, hanging out with her, when she did it.

#13.  Seeing Dusty & DJ's film "Vacation in Italy" at the Pazzo Short Shorts short film screening Sunday night.  My immediate reply to the invite was, "I want to support DJ.  But 9 p.m. is late for a Sunday."  Tif convinced me to go ["we'll only stay an hour, I swear..."] and I'm so glad she did - it was a treat to get to see DJ's work.

Here's the film.  It's 6 minutes long.  It's awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8HO-TDzTWk

And here's Dusty & DJ .

#13. i had so much fun with Tif at the Tea Zone, a tea shop on NW 11th & Glisan - they show free movies every Tuesday, and their theme this month is vampires; too cool!  This Tuesday's movie was Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Hee hee.  Oh my goodness... we had a blast quoting lines along with the actors, and the herbal tea-of-the-day, Organic Rooibis Africana, was fantastic over ice. 

The most fun, though, was discovering there were actors in this movie we had no idea had starred in it ... including Hillary Swank as Kristy Swanson's ditzy friend; David Arquette as Luke Perry's friend-turned-vampire Benny,  and Ben Affleck (as basketball player #10) ... oh, wait, and the other most fun part?  debating which line Hillary Swank regrets the most.  My vote: "Get out of my facial."

#13.  getting pedicures with Emmy... champagne, pink polish, & two hours of gossip.  fabulous.

#13.  still pretty psyched about my 13 mile bike ride last Saturday... took the Springwater Corridor down to Sellwood for a class on bike maintenance... I really enjoyed it, and I completed it without injuring myself!  [have you seen that bruise on my leg from my first ride?  even strangers comment on it; one girl called it "gnarly."  haven't heard that word in years.]

yup, that's 5.  happy friday.

{friday 5's for ... monday 7.9?}

last friday, I did something novel.  I did... nothing.  after dinner & drinks with my dear friend Ashleigh, I did not go meet my friends for the "running with the bulls" craziness downtown, I did not go meet my other friends at the Waterfront Blues Festival, I simply skipped everything, bought a decaf americano and sat in the sunshine on the porch of my new favorite place, Vivace, reading my new favorite book, The Queen's Fool.   it was bliss.

it goes without saying, then, that I did not post my Friday 5's, either.  ooops.  truly, i was just too tired to do them justice - and then the weekend got away with me.  so, i bring to you today the Friday 5's for July 6th... five things that made me happy last week:

#1.  My mom's weekend visit was truly one of the best weekends I've ever spent in Portland.  The highlights, according to me:  stumbling on a random music festival in a random parking lot on Hawthorne street after breakfast and picking up some cute skirts this random girl was selling...  touring the Rembrandt exhibit at the Portland Art Museum... perusing the estate jewelry at Margulis Jewelers [we were on a hunt for a ring Mom had seen in the local newspaper - turns out it was at Zells!]... introducing her to my good friend tiffanie over fondue... and strolling along the waterfront, french press coffees in hand, after brunch on Sunday morning.

and, everywhere we went, Mom was just amazed at the hydrangeas! 

 

Tif & Mom & I at the Melting Pot;  Mom enjoying Sunday brunch at Papa Hadyn

 

#2.  Emmy & Johnathan's 4th of July BBQ was a blast!  my entire goal for the day was to get some sun and drink some beer ... done and done!  didn't expect to see any fireworks, but it turns out we had a good view of one of the shows right from their backyard.  hung out late into the night, eventually lighting a fire and toasting s'mores until well past a smart bedtime for a work night... but, who puts July 4th on a weekday, anyway?

some images from the day:

 

#3.  summer has come to Portland!  loving the fact that, even though it can climb to the 90's during the day, it still starts to cool off around 4:30 and can even get downright chilly in the evenings... i was told the summers were Portland's best kept secret, and so far, so good!

#4. accomplishing some great stuff on the training template I'm designing at work... although the entire day spent trying to figure out how to record a macro to insert an autoshape [which apparently, cannot be done] was not fun at all.

#5.  friday's "night of nothing" sure made a happy ending to a happy [yet strange, what with the holiday in the middle of it] week.

{friday 5's ... june finals}

yippee skippee, it's friday, folks!

time for another episode of friday 5's, where i tell you five things that made me happy this week, and you read them.  [i think.]

1.  last night, at Last Thursday [which is supposed to be where you go up to Alberta St in North Portland and walk around and look at art and watch street performers and buy handmade items, but because it was raining, turned into "sit at Bink's bar, split a Tandoori Chicken pizza with Ravi, and hang out with friends for a few hours"], Emmy and Johnathan both showed up!  And, as evidence that someone reads these, after I commented on the surprise of it all [both of them!  in the same place!  hanging out with us!], Emmy said, "Hey, that should be one of your Friday 5's!"  And so it is, Em, so it is.

2.  the totally hysterical messages Mikey Lynch [and his cronies Tiffanie, Oliver, Ravi, DJ, and Lamonica] left on my voicemail last night after I [gasp!] left Bink's early [9:15 is not early, people!].  srsly, the funniest voicemail messages ever!  they were having so much fun, that when i picked up the second phone call [they were calling back because, apparently, there is a limit to how long your voicemail can be], they actually told me to hang up so they could leave another message. seems like they had as much fun recording those as I did listening ...

3.  the Portland New-in-Town Meetup groups first-ever photo scavenger hunt!  It was super, super fun!  the only sad part about it was that the entire thing was Doug's idea and he wasn't able to be there.  however, he, and and you, can live vicariously through these photos [there are more.  but people haven't sent them to me.  sigh. people.]

a sampling of the 13 things on the scavenger hunt list:

a photo of your entire team in front of the Portland sign at the Arlene Schnitzer concert hall; a photo of at least two members of your team and the words "Made in Oregon"

a photo of your entire team in front of the Portland Art Museum; a photo of your entire team on a  bridge
 

a photo of [nearly] your entire team with a Saturday Market vendor; a photo of your entire team enjoying a doughnut from Voodoo Doughnuts

 

and now for some photos not from the scavenger hunt list: the menu at Voodoo, and my voodoo-guy doughnut.  I asked, "What's his name?" and was told, "Voodoo Guy."  So, I named him Bill.  Later, someone asked who I named him after, probably [and, legitimately] assuming it was some jerk ex-boyfriend; nope, actually, he just kinda reminded me and Mike of Mr. Bill from SNL.  As in, "Oh, no, Mister Bill!"  [Suzanne, Jess, and Erin will appreciate that.]  Oh, FYI: Voodoo Guy's filled with red jam, for that oozing-blood effect. 

 

and this was pretty funny to me ... at one point, my team members stopped to take a photo of this entirely-unrelated-to-the-scavenger-hunt fish-sticking-out-of-a-wall image... and it totally cracked me up to see the influence four people looking up can have on total strangers [like the guy in the red shirt]!

the entire meetup was a blast!  We had 11 people total, and 9 of them I hadn't met before - plus, a few of them were very, very new to Portland, as in moved-here-three-days-ago new! it turned out to be, as i hoped, a great way to explore the city, interact with strangers [someone's got to operate the camera!], and meet new people - here's most of us after the two groups met back up at Pioneer Square and headed to Kell's for drinks:

Lucinda, Jeff, Sharon, Mike, Tif, Mikey Lynch, Lamonica, & Ravi.  [Shannon's behind the camera, Danny had to take off after the hunt, and we lost Jory somewhere in Saturday Market...]

4. a long bike ride along the waterfront, over the riverwalk and down the esplanade on the east side of the river earlier this week.  i'm going to get this bike thing, srsly.

5. shoot! can't decide between discovering [thanks to tif!] this fantastic crepere in NW Portland, Vivace [sitting with tif on this tiny balcony of this cute old house, enjoying Stumptown coffee and a nutella & banana crepe was a huge highlight of my week], or my super fun first knitting lesson - so, I pick them both.

It's Friday, I have a netflix envelope with Magnolia in my bag, and my mom is in town for the weekend.  Things = good.  Happy weekend, all.

{friday 5's for 6.22}

Welcome to the 6.22.07 installment of Friday 5's, where I wax poetic about the things that made me happy this week.  Why?  Because it makes me happy to do so.  [And no, that does not count as one of my five.] 

Let's jump right in, shall we?

#1 on the list this week has got to be: getting my new bicycle!  That's right, friends: I'm now the proud owner of a road bike.  All I can say about it is... it's so freaking pretty!  [Can you hear the collective groans of real cyclists?  I can.]  Seriously, it's a very slick bike... and I'm completely intimidated by it.  But, I didn't attend the PDX Women on Bikes' 3-hour "Let's Get Rollin" clinic last Saturday to let a little fear stop me [srsly.  getting past that fear is the whole point of the damn clinic.]; tomorrow morning, I'm taking it out and heading to the farmer's market on the east side - so I can 1. find a good route across town and 2. get my hands on some yummy local produce.  Sweet!

#2: breakfast with Doug before he left for an extended trip to Boston. good stuff.

#3. the girls-only happy hour last night - not by design, but the only people who showed up to 23Hoyt were me, Tif, and Lauren [whom I hadn't seen in forever].  3 girls + 3 cosmos each = slightly tipsy fun!

#4. signing up for knitting classes at Knit Purl.  I'm super excited!  Four weeks of classes, beginning next Wednesday.  I found a pattern for a scarf using Rowan Big Wool and huge, 15mm needles - I'm told this will be an easy way to start.  Good.  Did I mention I'm also learning how to ride a road bike?

#5.  the summer solstice...  what's not to love about the longest day of the year? 

And now I need to go clean up the post-pizza-making mess in my kitchen; I'm meeting a friend who's leaving Portland [who does that?] for a drink soon, and there are vegetables everywhere.  I am nothing if not a very messy cook.