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Lighting the Tree in Portland’s Living Room

Dear Liza,

Crescent moon hovering over the traffic downtown

Last Friday was an event we have missed the past two Christmases here in Portland, the lighting of the City’s Christmas tree. But this year, we went!

The 1876 Pioneer Courthouse, lit up for company

Pioneer Square, between 6th and Broadway and Morrison and Yamhill downtown, was the location of the elegant Portland Hotel from 1890 to 1951. President Theodore Roosevelt stayed there in 1903. It was the fanciest, tallest Hotel in town!

But by 1951 the hotel had become outdated and it was torn down, leaving a vacant lot used for that urban black hole, a Parking Lot. The city of Portland decided to create a public space and in 1984 the stair-stepped, brick covered City block opened and was quickly dubbed Portland’s Living Room.

Summer view of Pioneer Square from the Cupola of the Pioneer Courthouse

It is home to food trucks, a Starbucks, and a tourist information office. But mostly it is where folks go to meet friends, people watch, have a cup of coffee or eat their lunch, or enjoy some free music.

For the ceremony Friday, we took the number 15 bus downtown. We had a quick, tasty dinner at Killer Burger before joining the flood of folks heading to Pioneer Square.

The still-dark tree, a 75 foot sustainably grown Douglas Fir, stood like a tall shadow in the middle of 25,000 of winter outfitted people. Spirits were high and we were packed in shoulder to shoulder.

Pink Martini, one of our favorite music groups, was on stage (which we could hear, but not see), leading the crowd in Christmas Carols.

At about 6:15, the countdown began and we all ooohed and ahhhed as the white lights twinkled and then colorful and Christmas-y lights came on, signaling the beginning of the season and the end of the ceremony.

The river of people reversed course and began flooding toward bus and train stops, still in good spirits but also chilly and foot sore.

This is one of the things I love about being in a big city, the chance to be part of Big groups of people doing things I love. Now, it is full speed to Christmas!

Lights and crowds heading back to the bus stops

Love,

Grandma Judy

Thanksgiving Day!

Dear Liza,

I hope you had good food and family for your Thanksgiving. Up here in Portland, we had both.

The day started with watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV. New York was having such high winds, they almost had to ground the big balloons! But the winds died down and the balloons flew.
Auntie Katie and the Cousins arrived, and we had before-dinner cheese and crackers on Great Grandpa Lowell’s coffee table, using my Winnie the Pooh tray and Auntie Olga’s little snack plates. Kestrel declared them SO cute, and she was right!

There were games of Phase Ten and a home made 3- D tic tac toe game. Auntie Katie and I played ukulele and guitar and sang together, and then it was time for dinner. So much food! We ate turkey (carved beautifully by Auntie Katie) horsed around, and had some wine to toast the holiday and each other.

After dinner, Aunties Katie and Bridgett did the heavy work of breaking down the turkey for leftovers and soup, and putting all the leftover food in the fridge, while I put the Turkey skin and bones into the slow cooker with some onions and celery for stock! It will cook for hours and get delicious.

I wanted to go for a walk before it got dark, but the Cousins and Grandpa Nelson decided to stay home and play. We grown up ladies bundled up (it was 42 F!) and enjoyed Laurelhurst Park’s trees, dogs and a large contingent of ducks rustling through the fallen leaves looking for bugs.

Laurelhurst ducks enjoying their own feast

Heading home, I showed Katie the “dinosaur infestation” at a house down on Morrison. The lady who lives there, Elaine, collects and places plastic dinosaurs in her heard and trees, and it is adorable! Auntie Katie thought so, too.

Auntie Katie documenting the dinosaur infestation

It was dark by the time we got back, and Auntie Katie got Grandpa Nelson to play some music. Then we had slices of three pies! My pumpkin, and and apple and pecan from Katie. Yummy!!

Cousin Kestrel made a miniature dinner table out of the Tic-tac-toe game, and she and I set it up for dinner with plates made of tin foil and napkins and food cut from Post-it notes. Auntie Bridgett invited two tiny stuffed crows over for dinner, and it was quite a party, right there on the floor!

We all shared some music, on videos or guitar, ukulele or singing songs that Jasper is learning at school, and eventually it was time to get kids and us to bed.

A bunch of leftovers went home to feed the family, because Auntie Katie will be busy tomorrow, having a big Black Friday sale at Books with Pictures!

Love,

Grandma Judy

No Snow, but Cookies….

Dear Liza,

As I write this, it is Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. I stayed up half the night waiting for it to snow, as the weather service said it would. Denver got a foot, Chicago may be getting a bomb cyclone, and the Macy’s Parade in New York May have to ground the balloons. It seems our beloved Pacific Northwest is the only section of the country with no snow.

But tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and food is always good. I am softening butter to make Snickerdoodles, proving yeast for some Amish white bread for your picky-eater Cousins, and simmering cinnamon sticks for the cranberry sauce.

It is amazing how excited I got about Thanksgiving once we decided to buy the turkey pre-roasted! I can enjoy making the food I know I can do well for people I love and still have energy to enjoy the day. I can’t believe it took me until I was 63 to realize that I can hate cooking turkey and still be a good woman. Oy. Old stereotypes run deep.

Bread, and the children who love it, are wealth.

I hope you and your Daddy David and Momma Olga have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I will send pictures from our celebration tomorrow!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Not Quite Rainy Day

Dear Liza,

This week I got to spend a day with the Cousins. I had expected it to be pouring rain, so I thought we would to catch the number 70 bus to Lloyd Center to watch the ice skaters and play.

But it wasn’t raining, and we didn’t go. Friends of Auntie Katie had been hit by tragedy and needed help.

A house fire had burned up a whole family’s things, including every stitch of clothing, doll and stufftie. Auntie Katie had collected some clothes that would fit the children and Kestrel quickly pulled out some of her toys to donate, including a Cabbage Patch doll from many years past. “Cabby”, as we came to call her, had only one flaw: she was naked. It seemed rude to give a naked doll.

Kestrel found a doll sized blouse in a box, along with
some red fabric. We decided to make pants for Cabby. Kestrel, who is eight, knows the theory of pattern making, but needed a little help. We worked for about an hour and finally produced a presentable pair of pants, got Cabby dressed, and put her in the bag to join the family.

After we took care of a few more chores, it was time for me to head home through the very cold, darkening afternoon. The leaves are just about gone now, and many trees are loaded with fruit that will keep birds fed during the winter.

This pyracanthus tree will keep a whole flock fed for a month!

There were other sights in gardens that made me smile and happy that I live in Portland.

Love,

Grandma Judy

The Hot Sardines

Dear Liza,

The other evening we got bundled up and took a Lyft car downtown. The rain was taking a break and the city lights were so pretty, reflecting on the Willamette River as we crossed.

We were headed to the Newmark Theater, a small theater in the same complex as the larger Arlene Schnitzer Theater, where we have seen concerts before. We stopped for dinner at The Art Bar downstairs. Affordable, comfy and delicious, we had quiche, pasta and fries, along with some Acrobat and Charles and Charles wines.

The Newmark is up a sparkling spiral staircase, and since we had balcony seats, we got to have good views. We were there to see The Hot Sardines.

Auntie Bridgett and Grandpa Nelson introduced me to this band last year, and when they told me the name, I thought they were kidding. We know and love a group called Pink Martini. Hot Sardines sounded like a parody, like they were making fun.

But the Sardines are real, and incredibly good. They play, sing and (yes!) tap dance to Jazz from the 1920s to 1940s. Sophie Tucker’s “Some of these Days” from 1926 was the earliest song they performed.

The Hot Sardines performs with seven or eight folks, and the group is lead by vocalist Elizabeth Bougerol and Pianist Evan Pallazzo, backed by a trumpet, clarinet, trombone, guitar, bass, and drums.

Evan Pallazzo and the bass player (whose name I forgot!)

There is even a tap dancer, A. C. Lincoln, a percussion musician whose instruments are his feet. His skill and humor, including bits where it seemed his feet were getting away from him, added immensely to the fun of the show.

The musicianship and talent of the band is totally matched by the joy they clearly feel performing with each other. We clapped, snapped, and even sang along to “Your Feet’s Too Big”, “I Want to Be Like You”, in the style of Tito Puentes, (which was used in the animated version of The Jungle Book) and “Bei mir bist do shoen”.

In between songs, Elizabeth and Evan told stories and cracked jokes. After the show, the whole group went downstairs and signed autographs. Since I didn’t take pictures of the performance because that is rude, I took some candid pictures in the lobby.

It was a fine, fun, musical evening, and by the time we caught a Lyft home, we were humming, happy, and exhausted.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Sewers Too Close to Home

Dear Liza,

Well, for weeks now we’ve seen and heard the work coming closer. Huge excavators, dump trucks, ditch witches and jack hammers have torn up (and put back together, mostly) street after street.

The work is to modernize the sewer system for our neighborhood and to install swales to help clean the street run-off water. I am glad the work is getting done. Poor Pacific Grove, down by Monterey, hasn’t done this sort of work for a hundred years, and they have sewer spills almost every month in the summer, making their lovely beaches into smelly, unhealthy messes.

But man, is it noisy! Pounding to get through the asphalt, then scraping to get the asphalt into the dump trucks. Then comes the digging to get to the pipes, then the schreeching as the pipes are dragged into place.

Oh, and the vibrations! Room sized piles of gravel dropped from tall trucks sound like avalanches, and the steamrollers feel like rolling earthquakes.

It seems now that our street will be torn up just in time for Thanksgiving, and probably stay torn up until Christmas. Barring, of course, delays because of weather… snow and sleet are in the long forecast.

Cross your fingers!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Kid Friendly Art at the Zoo

Dear Liza,

As I have said before, the Oregon Zoo here in Portland is delightful. They take good care of the animals by giving them large, interesting enclosures. The keepers make sure the animals get healthy food and enough exercise.

The zoo also educates people about animals and how we can help take care of them, both in the wild and in captivity.

Carved mural in the Pacific Northwest area

But the zoo is also beautiful. Even in winter, when trees and gardens go bare, there are sculptures and other kid-friendly art. When I can walk slowly and really look around, I see more.

Cousin Jasper, hanging out with the goats

There is a stack of goats just near the entrance which is a great photo op for families. You and the cousins climb on it every time we are there!

The late Jim Gion’s lion sculpture, called Lunchtime, is a favorite with kids. They love sitting on the adults and rolling on the ground with the babies.

The other day when I was at the zoo I noticed two sculptures that I had never seen before. One is a frog about two feet high, called Sunning. It is in one of the buildings with small, tropical animals on display.

My biggest surprise was an outdoor sculpture group near the penguin enclosure. I couldn’t see any plaque giving the name or artist, and haven’t been able to find this information elsewhere yet.

Auntie Katie has identified the man as Charles Darwin. Grandpa Nelson wants to call it Mansplaining, which I kind of like. But I’ll keep looking for the correct name!

Sculpture group at Oregon Zoo, title and artist as yet unknown

Other art, like the stone sculpture garden, is meant to be climbed on.

At a wonderful event called ZooLights, the art is meant to be seen but not touched. Only open at night in winter, most of the zoo is lit up with beautiful colored scenes and animals that seem to swoop and run. It is chilly, but worth the extra layers.

I love our zoo!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Messages at the Zoo

Dear Liza,

I love that our zoo here in Portland works hard to care for the animals and make sure they are happy. I also love that they want to educate folks to the need for responsible action.

This past visit, we were met by Daisy the Polar Bear just as we entered. From a distance, she seemed soft, almost fluffy. When we got closer, however, we saw that she was made from plastic trash.

Plastic lighters, medicine bottles, and cooler lids, washed up onto beaches and collected by volunteers and sorted by color, were used to make Daisy. She is one of a collection of sculptures called “Washed Ashore” and designed to raise awareness of the hazards of littering and pollution.

The zoo is currently making a huge new habitat for Polar Bears, with a larger pool, indoor and outdoor exercise areas, and lots of ways for people to learn about these wonderful bears. Climate change seems to be ruining their wild homes, but our zoo wants to make them a safe haven. I like that.

There are also non-language signs that make it clear that people need to be careful of their behavior at the zoo. Items that end up in enclosures can be eaten by the animals and make them sick. I overheard several moms explaining this to their child, and I was pleased that both seemed to realize their responsibility.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Hello, SUN!!

Dear Liza,

With fall getting grey and damp, I had sort of given up on sunny days. But yesterday I wanted a long walk and Grandpa Nelson wanted to visit the zoo, and we got to do both under piercingly blue skies.

We walked through the neighborhoods down to the river and across the Morrison Bridge.

Amazing new building with giant flower pots!!

Because of the elevated bridge approaches, there are a few blocks by the river that feel sort of spooky and underground… not places to be after dark, anyway.

But being there on foot gives great perspectives on new buildings going up. This colorful new building has huge flower-pot shaped planters attached to the outside with trees growing in them!

We crossed the Morrison Bridge, enjoying the brilliant sunshine reflecting in the Willamette. The stiff breeze made my wool sweater and leather jacket feel just about right.

We could have continued walking once we got downtown, but the climb to the top of Washington Park would have worn us out. We took the train and then the super fast elevator up to the top of the hill. ZOOM!

The zoo was practically empty, just the way we like it. A few groups of moms with small kids in strollers, some brave grandparents, and us. We got to spent quality time with the giraffes, talking with their keeper, Virginia. She told us that the zoo tries to never anesthetize giraffes. Becoming unconscious means falling down, which can be deadly for the tall, spindly animals.

While she was feeding the Masai and Reticulated giraffes their carrot treats, we got to see their twenty inch black tongues! It was adorable and creepy at the same time.

We got to watch as the cheetahs prowled their enclosure. We felt a bit anxious realizing that we were just one pane of glass away from becoming lunch. The graceful cheetahs could run us down like a rocket. It was delightful.

I will tell you more tomorrow!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Thinking about Turkey

Dear Liza,

Momma Billie Evans, in her Lompoc kitchen, circa 2009

It is now just a week before I get to start fixing things for Thanksgiving. The day before the holiday will also be Cousin Jasper’s 10th birthday, so there will be party preparations, as well.

It is odd that when I look back on past Thanksgivings I remember the family and games, but when I look forward to the upcoming one, I think of the food that needs making. Particularly, the turkey.

Salinas Thanksgiving set-up and eight year old Kyle

For whatever reason, I have never had any success with roasting the enormous birds. They are never done right, either too pink or stone dry, and investing that much money and energy into something that I have no confidence in was, and is, exhausting.

Back when I was a kid, Thanksgiving was a dizzying blur of family and food. An assortment of my dad’s large family would show up early in the day, and we would climb trees and ride bikes until tons of food magically appeared, weighing down Momma’s old table. We ate, watched football, and played cards and Scrabble until the day just faded away.

Even when my kids came and I was THE MOM, we still went to my parents’ house for the holiday. I helped, of course, but the dinner-making magic was still my mother’s magic.

Grandpa Nelson, me, Auntie Christy and Uncle Jim, in Lompoc

The year my sister-in-law Christy suggested my then-85-year-old Momma order the dinner from the local Von’s Market was a revelation. Food and family without wearing out the Mom! Thanks, Christy!

After Momma passed we would go to visit Auntie Bridgett’s family for the holiday. There were three turkeys, three cooks, and literally a twenty-foot-long table. Again, I was off the hook for the BIG stuff.

We are staying home this year. There will be fewer folks around Momma’s same old table. And, at the urging of Grandpa Nelson and Auntie Bridgett and thanks to Christy, we are ordering our turkey already roasted from the local market. I can now look forward to family and games.

Thanks, guys!

Love,

Grandma Judy