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Sunday, December 31, 2006

 
5:58 PM: review [#] [0]

it's time for the end-of-the-year review! what -have- i been doing all this time?

the two biggest things are probably that sven bought the house & studio, and i began volunteering for planned parenthood's fundraising arm and campaigning against measure 43.

a lot of family stuff this year: my dad recovered from colon cancer, we met kristen & todd, michaelmas' dad visited, jalex graduated from birthingway, michaelmas' uncle died, we went to pesach at jalex's, we took a road trip to edmonton, alberta and had a lovely stay with sven's cousin culley & her family (steve, salix, linneah, violet), sven's parents visited, i went to rosh hoshana at jalex's, participated in a go game, sven's other cousin maija visited portland, we went to phoenix to celebrate my grandmother's 80th birthday, and then sven's grandmother died a couple of days before christmas.

for fun, i attended an alternate history party, did the se artwalk, planted a garden, went to several art shows, went to a susan mckeown concert, took water aerobics, went to the maryhill museum, went to several local plays, went to omsi w/ sven, took sven to the "create the world" event, leeann visited, we had a house adoption party, attended an ani de franco concert, the lovecraft festival, the shakespeare festival in ashland, a dresden dolls concert, met erika moen again at the stumptown comics festival, attended several holiday parties, saw the lights on peacock lane, had a hot chocolate tasting, upstairs jennifer visited.

at scarlet star studios i more than doubled the activities we host, made at least 5 pieces of art, opened a business checking account, took several classes, attended the CREATA conference, presented at rob's clark college class, was in several art shows, helped sven get into bent & laika, attended the aocc conference and finally met denis brown, joined radix, was interviewed for a graduate-degree thesis, dabbled in holiday sales, discovered how much i enjoyed creating wordwear, we renovated the closet in sven's space and painted studio meeting room.

in my "spare" time, i created the portland society for calligraphy website and helped maintain the x360 journal as jason pedalled his way across asia. i also did some cat sitting. :)

we had a good year this year; may next year be even better than the last!

Saturday, December 30, 2006

 
3:34 PM: six geese a-laying [#] [0]

arwen was our houseguest while michaelmas was in mt. vernon for christmas. she mostly stayed upstairs, and she ate & drank very little while she was here, which was pretty nervewracking for a cat who eats a bowl of food per day. i think she was just starting to get comfortable when i popped her back in the cat carrier and picked michaelmas up at the train station.

a few days ago i got to see "upstairs jennifer," my upstairs neighbor from san diego was was visiting family in portland. i was delighted to see her and meet her new baby evan! she's thinking of moving to portland, and i'm totally the "leave your life in san diego for a new, better life in portland!" posterchild. :) certainly i think raising a child in portland would be infinitely better than raising one in san diego.

michaelmas & i played with alex's wii last night. upon walking in the door we were immediately given microphones and asked to play the karaoke game, whereupon michaelmas & i embarassedly stumbled through "rocket man." amelia was fearless about karaoke, though! alex & michael were good at "guitar hero," while i got booted offstage not long into "i wanna be sedated." after a dinner at the whiskey soda lounge, where i finally tasted pok-pok's deservedly famous game hen, we moved onto the wii remote games. it turns out i excel at bowling and boxing, both of which are much easier on the wii than they are in real life. michaelmas got pretty good at tennis.

one of my new year's resolutions will probably be to floss. colleen would understand. :)

Friday, December 22, 2006

 
11:07 PM: palatable [#] [1]

we invited kristen & todd over to a hot chocolate tasting tonight. using tiny blue & white cups sven's mom got for me for my birthday, we tried 6 different flavors of cocoa (i was really surprised we had all these in our cupboard!):

* ghiradelli: chocolate mocha
* ghiradelli: sweet ground chocolate & cocoa
* mocafe: mexican spiced cocoa
* chuao hot chocolate: abuela
* chuao hot chocolate: spicy maya
* ibarra mexican chocolate wedges

i had a pot of hot milk simmering on the stove and we sampled several types each. we paired the hot chocolate with lightly toasted french batard slices, slices of toasted chocolate cherry bread sven just pick up at new seasons the other day, and a plate of blue cheese (which is really quite delicious paired with chocolate).

the overall winner was the spicy maya, though sven really liked the ibarra after we figured out we could use the microplane to grate it into a cup.

anyway, a hot chocolate tasting seems like an indulgent tradition to start. :)

Thursday, December 21, 2006

 
1:32 PM: scary solstice! [#] [2]

and it's a new moon, which really does make it the darkest night of the year. now the days can only get longer and lighter.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

 
1:52 AM: make it real [#] [0]

christamas arrived today. tree! lights! snow! stars!

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

 
10:47 PM: cellular [#] [0]

if apple really did become its own wireless carrier, i would finally get a cell phone. i think the whole cell phone pricing structure is a mess and combined with each carrier's greedy data transmission policies, frankly keeps me from getting anything at all.

of course, the likelyhood of this happening is almost nil. but i can dream...

 
10:43 PM: advocate [#] [0]

so i just finished patient advocate training at planned parenthood today. in january i'll shadow at the clinic for a couple of weeks, and then i get an offical-looking lab coat and a name tag. hooray!

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

 
3:08 PM: awareness [#] [2]

oh, no! the "unborn child pain awareness act" is being voted on today! "A BILL To ensure that women seeking an abortion are fully informed regarding the pain experienced by their unborn child." the main impetus appears to be because there are laws for the anaesthesia of lab animals before killing them, but all law is precedent, and i see the intent to use "unborn child" to further future anti-abortion law.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

 
12:53 AM: merry christmaspalooza! [#] [0]

christmaspalooza is here! I hold back on the celebrations until it's officially december 01, but once we break out the scary solstice cds & begin opening all the tiny boxes in the advent calendar, nothing can stop us!