Portland Tuesday

Tuesday, 25 March 2014

Wanda came to pick me up at the hotel and we headed out to see what was happening at "Nick's house".  Sure enough, the film crew was there.  They changed a couple things about the exterior of the house.  The child's swing was gone from the porch and an extra Magnolia bush had been added.  Why?  Lots of trucks from Universal Studios and other kinds of equipment spread through about 4 blocks!  Set up was definitely in progress but not filming.

We went on to the Museum, arriving about 1100.  I was a bit underwhelmed by the exhibit.  They certainly assembled many valuable pieces of art and other artifacts from so many other museums.  Most of it was late period, 18th century.  My knee was hurting so we didn't go through any other part of the museum.

Had lunch at an Italian place that served carbonara.  It was OK but not as good as I remember from Florence!

Then we drove around to some landmarks that Wanda wanted to show me. 

Back to the room to watch a bit of TV on the internet.  Then about 1930 headed out to find dinner.  Drove around and around.  Wanda couldn't find the Middle Eastern place she'd suggested so we ended up back at an Irish pub where we'd been a couple years ago. 

On the way back, we crossed Prescott again so headed back up to see whether they were doing any night filming.  There must have been a half dozen police cars with flashers on guarding the several blocks around the house.  We found an out of the way place to park and walked over.  Lights were on in the house but no obvious filming.

Portland, Monday

I made a 3 day trip to Portland to visit a friend.

Monday 2014 0324  Photos are here.
Don was up when I left, which was about 8am.  He wasn't feeling much better.  On the way south, I stopped at Point Defiance Park.  I'd found on line that there were supposed to be cherry trees there.  I found one.  I sketched it!

Back on the road to Portland.  Arrived about 12:30pm.  Wanda hadn't eaten lunch, so we went to her favorite tiny place.  Then on for our self-Guided tour of Grimm locations!

We easily found Nick's house.  There were signs outside marking No Parking for 3/25-27 due to "Filming".  Yay!!!  We're going over to see whether we can catch it!

The lot where Aunt Marie's trailer is stored was harder to find.  There was no actual street number at the location.  By process of elimination, it seems to be this vacant lot

We gave up trying to get to Portland Police station.  Between blocked streets, one way and traffic, we just had a hard time getting there.

So the next stop was Rosalee's herb shop.  The address turned out to be a bike shop.  I wondered how they turned that into the shop.  Then Wanda noticed an empty door next to it with no number.  But it seemed much more likely to be the location used for filming! It was on a block with the Salvation Army shelter and Oregon Leather.

Next we drove further south to find Monroe's house.  It seemed to be vacant and was an older home.  It did look like it was just down from the park where the first episode with the runner was shot.

There was a great view of Mt. Hood from that hill!

We went to Powell's.  I didn't find any of the books for which I'm looking.  I did buy the book light that Tina recommended for sketching in the dark!

Check in to my room at McMenamin's Kennedy School.  They've added 22 new rooms in a newly built wing.  It's still just as cool and beautiful as the original building.  We ate dinner there and then I took Wanda back home.  All the photos of the hotel are here.

I did a walk about the hotel as there are many cool rooms and bars.  This is the fireplace in the interior courtyard.

 I had a hard cider in the Boiler Room bar.  It was exactly that in the original school.  Did a sketch from my 3rd floor vantage point.

What's new

I'm neglecting this blog in favor of my arts blog.  I'm doing more sketching than anything these days. 

Update:  Not much fun and games here lately

Eye surgery:  Disappointing.  After paying a lot of money to have toric lens implant for the cataract, my vision in that eye can't even be corrected to 20/20!  The optometrist explained that the surgery to correct the defect (partial vitreous detachment) is likely the reason I can't get as good a correction as others did who just had a simple cataract surgery.  She offered hope that my vision could continue to improve for about a year post surgery.  Also, I do have to re-frame my disappointment:  the progressively damaging condition was fully corrected and my overall eyesight in that eye was saved.

Knee:  sigh.  I don't know what I did but I sustained some sort of soft tissue injury behind my right knee.  It was very painful and I had to use crutches to get to the doctor.  A few days of complete rest, a brace and prescription anti-inflammatory have mostly done the trick in just over a week.  It still hurts a little but the knee is now more uncomfortable with the brace than without it. 

Wolf has been sick with a nasty sore throat and dry cough for a week.  If not much better, he'll be going back to the doctor on Monday.  Poor guy.  He has a prescription but he's still quite uncomfortable.

I've not done a thing with the fabrics I bought at Sew Expo.  One was for printing on and the other painting with Inktense water pencils.  I also bought a Folkwear pattern I've not even opened. 

I attended 2 of 3 sessions of an excellent sketching workshop taught by a local artist.  I absorbed more useful techniques about perspective in one morning with her than I have in any other way in the past 2 years that I've been back to art!

 

I did, however, learn a technique for making my own sketchbooks!  A friend and fellow sketcher taught a workshop yesterday.  A few photos are here.

The method has an exposed spine:

Interesting activities and events are coming up, though.  I'm going to visit a friend in Portland and we're going to do the "Grimm Tour of Portland".   The TV series Grimm is filmed there and actual Portland locations are used for the exteriors.   Norwescon is mid-April.  I'm skipping Emerald City Comicon again this year. 

Sew Expo

Yesterday I went to Sew Expo with 2 friends.  All photos are here.

I came across a booth demonstrating how to use Inktense pencils to decorate fabric with a watercolor look.  I have a small set of pencils given to me at Christmas that I've not yet used. They work on 200 count Southern Belle cotton fabric just as they would on paper.  Once it is dry, it is permanment.  I bought a yard of the fabric and will probably first make and decorate a scarf with this technique.  I found the company website and the description of how they use the pencils.  

I bought a couple Folkwear patterns and attended their fasion show.  I do love Folkwear!




Current owner of Folkwear, Kate Mathews  (see more in the "about" ).  I learned that after many years of corporate ownership, Folkwear is now back in the hands of a creative woman.


Lars, from Birch Street Clothing has a vest made of an actual pattern piece.  He sells Folkwear Patterns.

Earlier this week I made 7 pillowcases to donate to the Pillowcase Patrol. 
They give them to Mary Bridge Children's Hospital in Tacoma.  They are also part of the Million Pillowcase challenge.


The Million Pillowcase challenge

Pillowcases for the geeky kids

Today I made 7 geeky pillowcases to donate at Sew Expo.

They go to Mary Bridge Children's hospital 

Really?

$80?!

 

Granted, it is an officially licensed NFL shop, good quality, hooded sweatshirt.  I'm not a sports fan but even if I was, I would not pay that for a sweatshirt!  

I have enjoyed the local fervor over the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl.  I watched the parade on TV.  There was no way, 2 days post-op, that I was going out in that cold with 700,000 people!

Eye surgery

On Monday, 3 February I had surgery on my right eye.  I had a partial posterior vitreous detachment.  Vitreous is the gel that fills the back compartment of the eye from behind the lens back to the surface of the retina.  It is important only during fetal development.  After birth, it serves no purpose so as people age the vitreous gel goes through some changes and can separate from the retina. Usually it doesn't cause a problem.  However, mine remained attached to the macula and pulled on it, forming a cyst. There was a chance it would resolve on its own so it was watched for about 9 months.  At the end of December, the MD said it was time for surgery as it was getting worse, as measured by repeated scans over the months of follow up.

So on Monday it was surgically repaired.  Because he would be working on that eye anyway, the MD also removed a cataract and replaced it with a toric lens implant.  The hope is that I will not need any glasses prescription in that eye.


I had to wear an eye shield for a day.  Here I am on Tuesday, about to go to my 24 hour followup.  I was amused by the surgeon's initials written above the eye.  He wrote it with a Sharpie after talking to me during pre-op prep.



Today is the third day post-op.  I'm already able to read some with the surgical eye without a glasses prescription.  I popped the right lens out of my glasses.  Maybe I'll just be able to have a monocle!  My neighbor is an optician and suggested contacts have improved so much the vision in my left eye might be able to be corrected and then I would only need one contact lens!
So far, so good!