Tonight is Portland’s Rose Festival Starlight Parade. I’m still not sure how I feel about parades. At one time I suppose I claimed to hate them, thinking they weren’t exactly cool. Parades can be heavy on nostalgia, so they are easy targets for cynics. I’m still not one to stake out my spot hours ahead of time, but my attitude has softened.
One, I’m now old enough to realize I’m not exactly cool myself, so who am I to judge?
Two, the people watching is excellent. Continue reading
Today is Memorial Day in the United States, a day to remember veterans and spend time with family and friends.
To give all the participants in the 2012 WordCount Blogathon a chance to spend more time with friends and family on this holiday, we have another theme day to make that eaiser. The theme is to create a “word cloud” of the frequently used words from our blogs.
My word cloud below is from the words on my home page on May 24, 2012. Continue reading
My morning commute is normally by bus. It’s generally a quiet ride. This being Portland, most people have their nose in a book. When the bus comes to the Willamette River, everyone looks up.
They look up to view the city, the clouds clinging to the West Hills, and on a clear day, Mount Hood. It’s a pause in the day.
(Yes, I have used this picture once before. You may recognize it from My Monday, My Sandwich.)
The bridges crossing the rivers of Paris, London and New York may be more famous, but like them, Portland’s bridges are part of the fabric of the city. Some pretty, some industrial.
And I have a favorite bridge, not just in Portland. It’s my favorite bridge. Continue reading
The 2012 WordCount Blogathon has its second theme day today, which is to write a haiku (the first theme was movies that inspire us). As a lawyer, writer and editor, my trade is words. I love words. I have a favorite word – baize, which is a green felt-like material often used to cover a billiard table. I love that there’s a word just for that.
But poetry, I had to learn to like. Continue reading
As I sit here eating my bowl of oatmeal* – a heart healthy choice, I am daydreaming of biscuits and gravy. I don’t know how it is that I never encountered biscuits and gravy as a kid. Biscuit, good. Gravy, good. No offense to the other cities I’ve lived in (perhaps they’ve stepped up their game), but until moving to Portland, I had to travel to get good biscuits and gravy. Portland has finally given me hometown options.
I should perhaps re-title this post to “Lessons Learned from the Trenches” or “Thank goodness there’s both Saturday and Sunday,” because in this battle, I actually want both sides to wins. Continue reading
For better or worse, I relate most of the events in my life to episodes of “Friends.” As a participant in The 2012 Word Count Blogathon (thank you Michelle Rafter!), I joined more than 300 other writers who accepted the challenge to post every day during May. For today, we have a theme, so I am writing about five movies that have inspired me. Turns out I am a bit like Rachel Green. Continue reading
For the past week, I’ve had a song stuck in my head. Normally, when that happens, it’s an annoying song or jingle that just won’t go away. This time though, it was good, finger snapping good. It was jazz.
With this tune in my head, I would be standing at the corner, waiting for the walk light, and I would go on a riff, toes tapping. I racked my brain to see if I could place it, but I had never heard it before. That meant I was composing brilliant jazz!
I had to write this down, it was that good.
I’ve played plenty of instruments but I’ve never composed anything before. If only I had a piano, maybe I could just play it for the world.
Piano. Wait a minute.
I had heard this before. Continue reading