kid stuff

despite what b.alexander's face may seem to be telling you in this photo, he is quite good with youngsters. especially when it comes to his adorable nephews and niece. His brother & his wife were in town for a wedding this week, so we had the chance to spend some time with them.

jamie & evan are doing something, probably many things, right as they have the most intelligent children i have ever met. jarom (5 as of this week) kicked my butt at monopoly-- he knew the rules better than i did and was a very accurate banker. he and 3 year old pacen know their times tables up to 12, and can do all sorts of complicated (by my standards) math problems-- even when you try & trick them up with order of operations. little miss tatum is probably the cutest little girl to ever be & it took all i had to not eat her up. tuesday we ventured off to the oregon zoo, my first visit, and had entirely too much fun taking pictures of the kids.

my favorite part of the zoo was not the animals, but the fantastic people watching. so i'll leave you with this young gent with his back to school fashion tips. (please note: homemade pokemon puff paint pants. hot.stuff.)

the robots are coming

the age of machines ruling the world is upon us! meet cybraphon, a robot band that plays its own music. this on its own is amazing, but there's more. cybraphon has moods, and it is these moods that stimulate the creation of its music. cybraphon is hooked up to a laptop that pays attention to how many friends it has on various social networking sites, and the comments it may receive. the more positive feedback it receives, the more upbeat the music is, and vice versa. pretty much amazing in every way.

and although this video is not so much robot involved, it's in the same category of cool.

quest for irrelevance

portland is a great city to be in when you're trying to save your pennies. there seems to always be some sort of free event or another going on. one of my favorites is first thursday, an event every month in the pearl district. art gallerys open their doors for a (free) look at what the artists of portland have to offer. it's one of the few places i don't mind being in a huge crowd as the streets fill with people & music. caitlyn joi & randall met up with b.alexander and i, and after we'd had our fill of first thursday, headed to caitlyn joi's to pursue some good ol trivia. hilarity ensued.

a board game lacking a die is no obstacle for the likes of caitlyn joi!

curls-o-love

in the end i came in 4th place with only two pieces of cheese

randall came in 3rd, caitlyn joi 2nd

b.alexander conquered all trivia, winning by a landslide.


even though i lost, i walked away with knowledge galore! my favorite facts:

a group of bears is called a sleuth
tycho brahe had a gold nose (just don't ask me who tycho brahe was)
the japanese call japan "nippon"
the letter K in scrabble is worth 5 points
noah used gopher wood for his ark


so there you have it.

coastal fun

b. alexander's father and step-mom were recently in town for a wedding. i was able to tag along for a day on the coast and a visit to the tillamook cheese factory. there are few better ways to spend a summer day than playing on the beach and eating ice cream and free cheese samples.

my seaweed whip! which, upon trying to show off the whipping skills i don't have, managed to give myself a nice little smack on the behind. no more showing off with whips for this gal.

in all my visits to the coast, i have never seen so many jellyfish. there were literally hundreds of jellyfish carcasses strewn about the beach like remnants from some unfair battle. it was quite a strange sight.
cape meares lighthouse

at one time they would use vegetable dye to label directly on the cheese

tillamook was the first cheese to be branded

palin, dictionary, cake & glass

in case you haven't noticed, michael jackson has pretty much dominated the headlines as of late. if you are like me this may have caused you to miss the fact that sarah palin resigned. i watched palin's speech (days after the fact- thanks m.j.) & what disappoints me the most about the whole ordeal is how hypocritical it is of palin to blame the media. after all, was it not palin who more or less said she thought clinton should just suck it up and not let the media get to her? blimey. i'm relieved she didn't make it to the white house. somehow i have a hard time believing that the pressures of alaskan governor are some how more intense than that of a vice president.

but what do i know?
well, i know locavore is a silly word.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary recently added almost 100 words including locavore and frenemy. which is pretty great in the sense that they seem like ridiculously unneeded words. i don't think i want to meet the person who seriously refers to themselves as a locavore (which is apparently someone who eats locally produced/grown food). don't get me wrong, i'm all for the practice, but locavore? can i at least refer to myself as a cakeavore? because i .really. like my cake. incidentally i'm on the lookout for a strawberry rhubarb cake/crisp/pie recipe if anyone knows of such a particularly tasty treat.

c & k were the first friends of b. alexander i met. it's been fun getting to know them, and sadly are leaving p-town for k's schooling. i'll miss them, but am excited for the adventures that await them in tennesse. c blows glass and has a show coming up for his work so he enlisted b. alexander to help make a short film of him in action. i tagged along in hopes of playing with my camera and witnessing the creation of c's beautiful pieces first hand. i am so impressed with his skill and am in awe of all that goes into glass blowing.

we had our cake and we ate it too! (it was delicious)

having had a craving for chocolate cake that no amount of zingers or candy bars seem to be able satisfy- i jumped on board with the cool kids and made this fantastic chocolate cake with b.alexander. without a bundt pan i used spring form pans, made use of some delicious strawberries, and changed the rich ganache to spicy ganache with some dagabo xocolatl. the results were successful and left us with full tummies and satisfied taste buds. (and although i probably shouldn't admit this-- i definitely had a little piece with my breakfast this morning)
thanks mom and kaycee for the inspiration and and for shelley's tips!

last night my neighbor chelsea invited b.alexander and i along to the risk/reward festival of performance art at a local theatre. we watched the first showcase which had 4 different performances. a dance piece by choreographer Linda Austin, writer/actor Joe von Appen, Byron Au Yong who did a sort of mini opera about Kuang, a delivery man trapped in an elevator for 81 hours, and Hooliganship a group self described as "tropycal-supermaryo-grunge-rock-duo". I love to see artists that may be a little "out there" but that don't take themselves too seriously at all. During part of Byron Au Yong's piece there was a rap from the bladder's perspective "this is a stick up! i'm a full bladder and not afraid to use me! watch yourself or you'll be covered in pee!" that had me laughing so hard I almost had a bladder stick up of my own. i am constantly amazed by other's ability to push the limits of creativity to make something completely new and entertaining- even if it is something silly like a rap from a bladder. again i am left feeling in debt to chelsea for her never ending means of entertainment she comes up with and also portland for being such a weird city full of bizarre and brilliant individuals.