What's Going On?

Good morning, my friends! A lot of water has passed under the bridge since we chatted last time. It's been a busy couple of days. We've been fortunate to have a couple of days of good weather. When I left you on Friday, I was getting ready to have a late breakfast with Matthew. Before I left, I had a good start on the 3rd Tiny Treasure. It has about a zillion French knots, and so it was about three sittings to finish it off. The face, ears, and tail are done in a stem stitch fill. The legs are satin stitch.

I'm not sure why the fuzzy sheep looks green in that image. The floss is actually a dark gray. 

So I left it half finished when I left to go to Matthew's place. It was drizzly and gray when I left home, and it was still drizzly when we finished our meal and went back to his place. There, we spent a little more time while Matthew prepared a tea ceremony. He has a friend who's into the whole culture of tea-drinking, and so it was very nice to share that experience with him. As we sat drinking our tea, the weather cleared, and the sun came out. We decided to take a walk around a trail near his house at the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge.

We've lived in the Portland area since 1978, and yet, I'd never experienced this trail. It was lovely, and what a nice resource for the folks living in his neighborhood. We stopped at various lookout points along the way.

There were plenty of ducks. We also saw several great blue herons. I took a picture of one, but it didn't turn out. This duck was swimming close by.

Here's a golden egret. We saw several of them too.

This is chicory. It's more blue than this picture indicates.

Also, lots of sweet peas. It seems late in the year for them, but there you go.

Nearby was another color.

And wow...good thing I wasn't riding my bike, huh?

The three-mile trail took us past the Oaks Park Amusement Park. Matthew tells me this park isn't used much these days except for busloads of school children who sometimes come here on a field trip.

After walking the 3-miles to the end, we passed through this tunnel to get back to his neighborhood.

So that was a lovely day, spent with my kiddo.

Then yesterday we were gifted another beautiful day of weather for our No Kings gathering. I'll say more about the No Kings protests in a minute. I need my soapbox for that. I know it's around here somewhere. I'll find it, and then I'll tell you about the protests. Before we left home, though, I had time to stitch up Tiny Treasure #4:

The gray outlining the watering can is the same gray used in the sheep above. Go figure. 

So, if you're not of the protest persuasion, I don't have a lot more to tell you. I've made no more progress on the Fantastic Felines. I'm sincerely hoping I can finish it off today. If not today, then tomorrow. Here's where I left it on Thursday:

I'm not sure what else the day holds. We'll have our Sunday morning pancakes, and I probably have at least one housekeeping chore on the calendar. I'd say I'm going to get in a workout, but I'm kind of worn out after a 3-mile hike on Friday, and then standing and waving a sign for three hours yesterday. Also, there was music playing at our venue, and so I'll admit to dancing too. Sometimes the music moves me, and I have to give in to it.

Oh...here's my soapbox. You'd think something that big would be hard to misplace, but never underestimate my talent for losing things I had in my hand five seconds ago. Read on, if you like. And if not...have a good day today, okay?

 

So, we went first for breakfast at that fancy French restaurant Le McDonalds. The first protest we attended last spring was a big one in the city of Portland. The size of the crowd intimidated us. Indeed, Portland had two protests yesterday that converged into one. In all, estimates put the crowd at about 40,000. Here's a picture of the crowd at the waterfront. Amazing.

Mike and I are both crowd-phobic, and we were intimidated by the crowd at the first protest. This time, we decided to stay closer to home in our little town of Newberg. Newberg has a population of around 27,000 people. I'm going to estimate we had about 1,000 at our protest yesterday.

It was very well-organized with flags, signs, water, coffee, and snacks provided. (Good snacks. I imbibed more than once.) Here are some of the inflatables and posters they had posted around.

Some of the worst neighborhood ne'er-do-wells were in attendance. Look at these two derelicts:

We gathered at the town flagpole. This is Highway 99W, which is one of the main roads leading to the Oregon coast. The intersection is heavily traveled on any day of the week. I walked a distance down the road to try to capture the whole crowd. The image below doesn't really do justice to the size of the crowd, but it does give some idea of the lay of the land. If you look just to the right of center, I've drawn a white arrow where Mike was standing. After taking this shot, I joined him there. The road splits to a one-way grid as it passes through town, and that left lots of sidewalk and island areas where folks could stand.

And it was so much fun. Cars would stop there are the red light. When the light turned green they drove on, honking their horns and raising their fists in solidarity. People cheered and gave us the thumbs up. They waved, and we waved back. In the hundreds (maybe thousands) of cars that passed by while we were there, I counted four flipping us the bird. The man beside us yelled, "Peace, Brother!" at each one. I was less polite. I figure if they're flipping the dodo bird, then I'll flip a bird back at them. Mine is an eagle. 

Here are some more signs and banners I liked.

I regret not getting this whole sign in the picture. It says, "No Kings. Frogs Together Strong."

Because the road splits to a one-way grid at that spot, it was possible for some drives to make the loop around again and again...this guy, for instance. Also, the spotting you see in the image below is from the soap bubble machine that was blowing bubbles while we were there.

The sign on the left below says, "It's a Trumpster Fire."

The one below is one I saw on Facebook. Indeed.

There were plenty of people in costume too. This person had a Trump baby balloon.

I loved this woman's frog eye headband. These are available on Amazon. I'm seriously thinking I need one.

But even when rousing the rabble, one should always take time to smell the roses. I captured these next two images when I walked a distance to see the crowd.

And if you want to see more funny signs, I'll invite you to click right here.

In closing, I'll just say that if you've been reticent to join in the protests, they are a salve for the soul. If you're despairing about the state of our government right now, then consider joining in if you can. As I've mentioned before, you can enter your zip code at this site and find a protest near you. If you're not up for standing, marching, or holding a sign, there are other ways to volunteer listed on the site as well. For example, Matthew has volunteered to be a chanter at the next one. As for us, we'll take our lawn chairs next time.

Okay, so that's all I have for you today. It's been a busy week, and I'm tired. The coming week will be busy too. Aside from sewing, I'm probably going to give myself some time to chill today.