19-21 December: holiday whirl, part one

Saturday, 19 December 2015

The last Saturday Christmas Market at the port called out for some photo-taking and acquisition of Pink Poppy Bakery cookies.

The market was in the building just north of Salt Hotel

Pink Poppy Maddy

We saw Lisa (formerly of Crank’s Roost).

Coincidentally, we had bought her a couple of tea towels with birds the previous Saturday.

sand dollar ornaments

Lisa also had to get some Pink Poppy treats.

We had rainbows.

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Lisa dropped off her present to us so quickly that we did not have time to catch her at the gate with her gift, so Allan chased her and a rainbow through Long Beach.

She’s in the orange car. He did catch up.

After an afternoon immersed in old journals, I shook off the past and we went to our friend Jan Bono’s annual Christmas party.

Smokey and Mary stayed home.

Jan bought her house especially because of this great room for a tall Christmas tree.

a second tree in the den

She even wraps the pictures on the walls for the season.

the groaning board

mmm, deviled eggs

a table full of gifts

The gifts were raffled off in a drawing, with the request for a donation to the South Pacific County Humane Society.

Those who wished could join pianist Steve for Christmas carols in the den, while others could sit and converse around the big tree.

Jan and Steve

extensive lyrics were provided; I was especially moved by the last verse of Good King Wenceslas: “Ye who now will bless the poor shall yourselves find blessing.” And much about the wind. We’ve been getting a lot of that.

the raffle drawing

This year I participated in the caroling and found it deeply moving.

Allan’s photo

Jan told me that she wants to bring back the way that folks traditionally celebrated the holidays, and she does a perfect job of it.

Sunday, 20 December 2015

Acanthus ‘Hollard’s Gold’ aglow in the garden

and a hummingbird treat, Mahonia’s yellow flowers.

What I did not even notice when I took the above photos was that the fence between us and Jared and Jessika’s house was leaning in toward us, with the wooden gutter planter halfway off.

After another day of journal reading, we took Del and Wendy to dinner at the Depot, to thank them for all the effort they put into the community, especially with the Jake the Alligatorman event.

Allan’s photo

Del and Wendy

I was touched that Del, a city councilman (and old Portland punk rocker in the band Lockjaw), expressed how much he appreciates our work on the city parks and planters.

Del had oysters.

The rest of us had petrale sole with lemon caper sauce.

Because Del works for a local fish distributor, he was a fount of fascinating information about fish and the fishing industry.

in closing, eggnog cheesecake with a delicate sauce

Monday, 21 December 2015

We would not be having a solstice fire today.

too wet and windy, with a full gale warning flag flying at the port

Allan noticed the falling fence and went out into the cold wind to keep it from keeling right over.

saved!

The south wind had blown boards out of the front fence, also.

I was hoping the power would stay on as we wanted to go see the new Star Wars movie.  I was a fervent fan of the first three movies (by which I mean episodes IV, V, and VI), especially The Empire Strikes Back.

This poster has been on my wall since about 1980.

a holiday card that I sent out in 1980 or before

me with my Halloween date in 1981

and today!

I managed to attend the film completely spoiler-free (other than some knowledge about Han, Luke and Leia returning and Adam from Girls playing the villain).  So I can say no more except that I will likely be seeing it again later this week.

Tomorrow: more of the holiday whirl