Those Wiley Squirrels

My cousin hates squirrels. They ate their way through her patio umbrella. They ruined her tomato crop. She detests them. So every year at Christmas, I try to find her something squirrely. One year I found a squirrel game. One year a quilted squirrel hanging. On Squirrel Appreciation Day (yes, of course there is one! January 21st), I send her a card. In turn, she send me information on how deadly they can be (not to humans, but she doesn't clarify that) and why they should be hated. It's our way of staying in contact. I know she secretly loves squirrels. She thinks I share her hatred. 

The truth is, even knowing they can be destructive to housing and wiring and gardens and things, I love them. I love to watch them scurry across the yard. I love to watch them bounce, tail flying, jumping quickly up a tree. My son's dog Jack is super interested in chasing squirrels to the point of distraction. So focused. If a squirrel has ever been in a spot, he has to check out the spot. My yard is Jack heaven.

I love to hear them scold the kitty for, well basically thinking about them. We had a kitten who really wanted a squirrel of her own. I'd sit out on the porch every afternoon to wait for my fella to return from work and the dog and cat would wait with me. Kittles fell in love with squirrels and would chase them. They would bark and scold her, all the while just a few feet above her in the tree. Kittles would climb a bit higher and the squirrel would also--always staying a couple feet away, barking and scolding. Obviously the squirrel was just that much smarter than Kittles because every time, Miss Kittles would climb a bit too high and get stuck in the tree. "Yeah," the squirrel would taunt, "who's smarter, now?"

Right now the squirrels are the only things moving in the yard. Due to horrible smoke conditions at a high hazard level, we aren't outside, the house pets aren't outside, the dog walkers aren't outside. So the squirrels are running rampant, gathering food for the winter, stealing from other squirrels who are gathering for the winter. They are having their own parties at the bird feeders. They are so clever! There was one old squirrel--he had the battle scars along his entire back to show his age and garner respect--who would try to gather bird seeds and fruits every day. He would fly from the porch post to grab the feeder. The feeder would spin and he would fall. Every day.

Until the smoke from the wildfires came to live in our city, my fella and I would often eat dinner out on the deck, under the umbrella that, by the way, isn't damaged by squirrels. And while we ate and chatted, the squirrels would race past us along the fence top. One way would have a little apple or nut in it's mouth; the mouth would be empty on the way back. Over and over during one meal.

Squirrels do a lot of good. They plant seeds and keep the forest going. Their caching behavior of seeds is important to renew the forest. There are also about 200 species of squirrels. They are entertaining. And they are a mystery. These rodents aren't studied as much as others, so there is always something new to discover about them.

And yeah, they can be a nuisance. Don't tell my cousin I said that. They can chew through just about anything. They chew all the time because their incisors never stop growing. Chewing stuff keeps the incisors from growing into their lower jaw and skull. They raid bird feeders. They dart out in front of cars.

But dammit! They are so dang cute. 

Visit YouTube to have more fun with squirrels: 

Ray Stevens, The Mississippi Squirrel Revival https://youtu.be/K16fG1sDagU 

Mark Roper, NASA engineer, builds an obstacle course for squirrels: https://youtu.be/hFZFjoX2cGg

And so it goes
peace~~~

 

Some Quilty Stuff: A Cozy Bowl

 

How many times have you put a bowl in the microwave oven and when the food is finished cooking, you burn your fingers trying to take it out? Or you get it safely out, but you sing, "Oh Oh Oh!" all the way to the table? Well, this is why we make bowl cozies :)  They go perfectly into the microwave, heat up the bowl of whatever, and we can safely carry the hot bowl to the table.

They are fun and easy to make that anyone can do it. I made a few of these cozies for my nieces last Christmas and my fella grabbed up a couple for our use. They are kinda cool, so fast and easy to make, I thought it would be fun to show how they are made.

First you need a few tools. Scissors. Ruler. Marking pen. Two 10” pieces of batting and two 10” pieces of fabric.

I am using Warm and Natural batting from the Warm Company. The fabric is cute cats. You can use different fabrics for top and bottom or the same fabric. Notice how that little bear is helping me....

Take both 10 inch pieces of batting and, with a ruler, make a line from corner-to-corner. 

Then line the fabric pieces to the batting. The pretty side of the fabric out and the marked piece of batting on top.

The fabric will stick pretty well to the batting, but I suggest you put pins through both the fabric and batting simply to keep everything in place.

Sew on the X that you created on the batting. Go slowly in order to stay on the line and to keep your fabric sitting well under your batting.  Do this on both pieces of fabric and batting.

Now fold your piece of batting that is connected to your fabric and mark down two (2) inches.  Also mark over one (1) inch.  Do this on both ends.  Sew along the lines, top and then bottom.

Now mark the other sides and sew along those lines. See how the square starts to shape up like a bowl?

Clip off the "ears" 

 

Do this same thing with the other 10 inch square. Now you will have two bowl shapes :)

Put the two bowls together. One will be right-side up and the other will be right-side down.

 

Match up the seams and pin the seams where you cut off the "ears." Match up the pointed corners and pin them together.  See how it looks like one bowl, but with the batting on the outside.

Now you will sew around the top at 1/4" seam allowance.  Leave a two (2) inch opening between the center and the corner. This will be where we turn the cozy inside out.

When you get to a corner, simply leave your needle down, lift the foot, and turn the corner.  Now your needle will be in the right position to continue sewing the next side.

When you have completed sewing the top together (remembering to leave a two inch opening!), trim the corners by clipping the tops off. Be careful you don't clip the stitches!

Now is the time to turn the whole thing inside-out! Start by poking your finger into a corner and pushing it toward the opening. Do this with all four corners, gently pulling the corner out that opening. It kinda looks like an octopus but it doesn't spit ink :)

When you have all the corners outside the little gap, you need to poke out the corners to become sharper looking. I like to use a crochet hook to really get those corners out. I suggest not using scissor tips because you can poke right through the batting and fabric. Yeah, ask me how I know that one! However you do it, poke them out sharply.

Shape the cozy into a bowl shape again. Roll the seams so that they are open and flat against one another. What I mean is, try to get them as open and together as possible. Fold the opening together by folding over a quarter inch and pin the opening together.

Now we top stitch around the top. I like to make a stitch line that is smaller than a quarter inch seam but large enough to catch all the folding of the seams. About 1/8th of an inch line. This will catch that two-inch opening and close it up. And it will look just like the rest of the top stitching. And TaDa! You have the cutest little bowl cozy in the world.

Okay, lets review:

-Start with two each of 10" squares of batting and of fabric

-Mark the batting with a pen or pencil from far corners to far corners, creating an X on the batting.

-Pin the fabric to the batting, the pretty side of the fabric on the outside.

-Sew with batting side up on the X for each piece of batting.

-Fold in half and mark the top and bottom with 2" down and 1" across to form a "V." Do this for all sides on both squares.

-Sew along the V lines and trim off the "ears."

-Put the squares--now bowl shaped--together and nestle them sweetly. Pin seams and corners.

-Leave a 2" gap opening and stitch 1/4 seam around the top.

-Pull the insides out and clip the corners.

-Poke out the corners so they look pretty.

-Fold the opening closed and pin.

-Top stitch around the top, catching the opening gap.

-Eat your favorite soup!

 

And so it goes
peace~~~

 

Weird Portland Wednesday: The Mad Hatter

People really love to collect stuff. My younger son collects old Atari games. My elder son had a girlfriend who collected salt and pepper shakers. I went to a cafe at the coast that collected PEZ dispensers. There were hundreds lining above the windows on a shelf that ran the whole seating area. My mother-in-law collected...oh hell she collected a bunch of stuff. My mom liked wooden things. 

At one time, I wanted to collect something but couldn't make up my mind what I wanted. I thought inkwells would be good since I do calligraphy. They didn't excite me. I thought maybe shakers, but they didn't really me. I found I loved old little pitcher-pots--these antique creamer pots (that came with a sugar bowl, so I had to take both) made of interesting glass. So, I have some of those. And I fell in love with these great little teapots made in China out of Yixing clay. They are so cool. 

So yeah people like to collect things. We  here in Portland are no different. One such collector is Lu Ann Trotebas, who has a really large collection of hats. In fact, she has the largest collection of hats in the United States.  She says, "I collect hats!  My passion for collecting hats is in the desire to preserve hat fashions and their cultural heritage before these precious, historical gems disappear with the passage of time." (https://www.thehatmuseum.com/about-the-director)

The curated collection is often used for research by theatre companies, colleges and universities, television companies, and more from around the world.  

This museum has a 90-minute tour that takes you through the house and leaves you with an incredible depth of knowledge about toppers. Twenty-two hundred of them. And if you select a fashion period, Ms Trotebas will give you a great deal of information about the period and the fashions that go with along with the era. 

An internationally known Hat Museum.  Who knew? But here it is, helping to keep Portland weird.

And so it goes
peace~~~ 

 

Throwback Thursday: Let's All Go to the Drive-In

 

I loved going to the movies. I still love everything about the theater. The smell of popcorn. The seats. The darkened room that, as the lights dim, still gives me a little thrill that something larger than life is about to happen. My first movie was probably a Disney. I remember watching Pollyanna and That Darn Cat (both starring Haley Mills). In 1964, Mom took my sister and me to see every movie that was up for an Oscar as best picture. Oh I fell in love with Sidney Poitier.

As much as I still love watching movies in the theater, cars and dating brought much more excitement into our lives. The first theater for the auto-bound was opened by Richard Hollingshead  in Camden, N.J. People paid 25 cents per car as well as per person to see the British comedy Wives Beware under the stars. By 1958, the number of drive-ins peaked at 4,063.

I loved the drive-in. I loved the idea of sitting in my own car, snacking and watching a movie. When I was a teen, my parents would not allow my sister nor I to have a date at the drive-in. I never could figure out why; she never explained. It wasn't until 1966 and Dr. Zhivago.... I actually went to the drive-in (don't tell Mom) three times to see it and never saw the whole movie all the way through.

At school I heard about kids that successfully snuck into the drive-in, so my best friend Cindy and I tried to do just that.  We drove in through the exit...and were promptly stopped by security and sent out. Damn.

When my children's father and I moved to Grants Pass, Oregon in 1970, we were in the monetary range of poor. We had no money to do things that cost money, but once in a while we could go to the drive-in. It was so cool! The babies were in their jammies. The back of the car was down and blankets laid out. The babies slept and we watched the movie. I remember clearly watching Audrey Hepburn and Richard Crenna in Wait Until Dark.  There was one scene where Audrey, who was blind, stuck a knife into the bad guy (Alan Arkin) and then ran upstairs to yell for help out the door. As she was coming back down the stairs, Arkin jumps out of the dark and grabs her. Everyone at that drive-in gasped and screamed from their car. And we all felt and heard us gasp and scream. (I just watched that scene again and gasped loudly when Arkin jumped out. Doug came running in, worried I was having a heart attack or something.)

One of the coolest things about the drive-in was the in-car speakers. They became part of the drive-in in the early 1940s. While it is true the sound wasn't all that great--when you could find a speaker that actually worked--but having it sit on your door and give you movie sounds...it was, well... magic!  

And, if I remember correctly, many drive-ins had play areas for the kids.  I remember swings and sand boxes. Play equipment like slides.

Most of the drive-in theaters were decommissioned and or torn down by the 90s, unless they were used for other things. Drive-in churches. Swap meets. Band concerts. Public markets. The large space accommodates many possibilities. 

Many drive in theaters are still used as park-in theaters. With this year's pandemic, and movie theaters closed, the drive-in theaters are being used well. We can grab a movie and still feel safe. AND we can listen to the movie through our phones or a portable radio. New times tech cool.

So hey! Let's all go to the movies!

And so it goes
peace~~~

 

Weird Portland Wednesday: A Nickname We Proudly Own

Portland has become pretty infamous lately with 90+ days of both peaceful protesting and active rioting. Make no mistake. There are two different things going on. The peaceful demonstration of Black Lives Matter happens nightly until about 10:00. And then the riff-raff comes in and the riots begin. This is nothing new for us. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush found us to be a bit snarky toward his policies, partly for his waging of the Gulf War, but also for failing to address the AIDS epidemic and for his pro-life stances, among other things. So of course, we protested the Gulf War with the slogan "No Blood for Oil." This was when President GHW Bush gave us the nickname of Little Beirut. We took the name to heart, proud of our demonstrations and ability to enact our free speech right. 

Scot Hampton, a photographer who remembers shooting the Gulf War protest, No Blood For Oil, circa 1991 said,  

It was an electric scene. There were people of all ages and all walks of life, whom were very emphatic in their opposition to the war.... It was the first time I think the community at large had coalesced around an issue of war probably since Vietnam, so there was lot of emotion and a lot of veterans present—all rallying behind the disapproval of the first Gulf War. (citation)

Actually our beloved title of "Little Beirut" was well earned throughout the years, long before President Bush came to town. Apparently Portland has long been world renowned for it's demonstrations.  

In 1934, striking Portland longshoremen protested efforts to bring in replacement workers. They surrounded the hiring hall and disabled buses that were there to take the new hires to the port. “The strikebreakers never even got near the docks,” The Oregonian reported. Port operators responded by turning an old ship into a “floating hotel” so the replacement workers wouldn’t have to cross picket lines, but strikers infiltrated it, tossing guards into the water. That sounds a lot like Portland.

Stereotypers for The Oregonian and The Oregon Journal walked off the job in November 1959 to protest stagnant pay and the impact of increasing automation. Other newspaper union members joined them. Five months later, several hundred strikers staged a long, funeral-procession-style march through downtown Portland to keep the strike in the public’s mind. The labor dispute included bombings and other violence before it finally ended in 1965, with the two dailies becoming open shops.

A solemn march, both against segregation and in mourning for the recently assassinated Mississippi civil-rights leader Medgar Evers, weaved through Portland’s neighborhoods in 1963. The demonstration picked up participants as it progressed through the city, growing to hundreds of people. 

Others include

• In 1965, Portland State hosted a National Security Seminar featuring army officers warning of the dangers of world communism. Folk musicians played in the Park Blocks while more than 100 students carried signs with messages like “This is a College Not a Kindergarten” and “Muscles No Substitute for Mentality.”
• In 1967, six Reed College students blocked entry to Portland’s U.S. Selective Service office by chaining themselves to the front doors.  
• The “Battle of the Park Blocks” in May 1970 pitted Portland
  
  State students, faculty and other protesters against police. A police tactical unit charged the protesters, who had barricaded streets as part of a nonviolent nationwide student strike. The confrontation led to more than 30 injuries.
• In 2002, President George W. Bush met the same reception in Portland as his father a decade earlier. Police used pepper spray and shot rubber bullets to break up a surging protest that kept local Republican donors from getting into a downtown fundraiser Bush headlined.

There have been so many more.  

Yes, we are honored to have such a nick name as Little Beirut and hold our right to demonstrate and speak out against the government. We sincerely appreciate and participate in BLM protests. We are a bit tired of the riff-raff rioters, even if numbers of them are down to a couple hundred.

Little Beirut...one more way we are keeping Portland Weird.

And so it goes
peace~~~