Stories & SNippets : 2015
…and observations, journals, & musings on music, film, books, art, and pretty things. and life in general.
January 2015
January 15
Listening to Rachmaninov.
January 16
Guided a pair of high school classes through their first attempts at shooting a commercial. Went fine, I think they had fun and learned a little. Becca home sick. Got back and…well, when you go hard, you go hard and being sick means a different sort of thing in our world these days, so…we traded, and Sick Mom took a break from being with two energetic non-sick kids and went grocery shopping and gift-buying for an upcoming shower. Also: changed the kids’ upcoming karate lessons. Why? Forgot I had a Blazer game to be at. Problems.
Our College Place family came to hang out in the afternoon and evening. Pizza, worship, skits, a good time.
January 17 - a Shabbat
Church in the City. All about Millennials and their relationships with things such as faith, sexuality, technology, and money, all delivered by the fiery bald headed fellow in the leather jacket. Then to Spaghetti Factory and a wet stroll along the Willamette. Our 8-year old, contemplative in her singular flower jacket, our 5-year old, grumbly in his red plaid coat. On to Jonny & Meilani’s, where we hang with a variety of family. My dad takes what appears to be an incredibly-uncomfortable nap in their kitchen, sitting upright but somehow finding peace, while our son converses with his aunt about megaphones and other topics of mutual interest. Others lounge around, shoeless, on various phones and devices, conversing and sipping the remnants of Dutch Bros liquid.
February 2015
February 02 - a Friday
Our kids hang out with our bottom-of-mountain neighbors for the morning, T & T. Went well. Beautiful day. Classic Auto for oil change, walked to library, found missing design book at Classic Auto!
Had to go back into Portland to get computer bag I left. Late burgers for supper, listening to Sonic Youth and Beethoven. Week has gone so fast.
February 4 - a Wednesday
Piano practice. My favorite 7-year old girl wearing my favorite typewriter shirt. Noodles. An evening of Oscar-nominated shorts, together, at the greatest little theater this side of Vancouver. A good day.
February 9 - a Monday
We filmed reenactments of David & Goliath.
We designed food pyramids with pen and watercolors and turned them into placemats.
We baked cookies. Chocolate chip, peanut butter, and nut.
We listend to Beethoven on vinyl.
We started reading Book 12 of Series of Unfortunate Events.
We reviewed the 50 states and countries of South America for Geography.
Our daughter created her 1st stop motion by herself.
Monday was normal, unique, and good.
February 13
Listening to Sonic Youth and Beethoven.
February 18, 2015
Field trip with five kids to the zoo. Penguins are a big hit. Two girls leap off rocks surrounded by penguin statues; it’s hilarious how much interest kids can have in the inanimate parts of a zoo. Snacks, of course, are a big part. Our son, like me, seems to dig the warthogs. Or is it in reaction to my reaction? Shared enthusiasm?
Big snakes, crocodiles, always a hit with me. Then the swings, or these balance kind of deals that soak up a good chunk of time. We eventually escape, injury-free and many good memories to log in the heart archives.
March 2015
March 02
Full day of learning. LONG naps for both. Grillers for supper. Gratitude journals!
March 03
Last day of Tuesday skiing: sad.
Teaching: sports team cliques with constant explanations for being late or not involved.
New water system install: $5k plus. Can’t call myself overjoyed.
Also, our precious 4-year old apparently had quite a captive audience drawing phallic symbols on various creatures at Timberline Lodge…
Listening to …And They Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead.
April 2015
May 2015
May 22
My mom, bless her, hanging with and educating our children this morning while I hang with and educate minds of the teenage variety across the river. I take the latter category through the process of setting up and filming interviews in the studio. Later, at home, there are baths, Friday evening music, food, and cousins snuggling in for sleepover.
May 26
Listening to a lot of Xavier Rudd.
June 2015
July 2015
July 22
Chappo and Caravan Palace have soundtracked this dry day well, along with Belle & Sebastian’s “Sleep the Clock Around.”
Watching the Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore romcom "Blended." Messy, predictable script, but there's something about the chemistry between them that's captivating and charming...
August 2015
August 6
A boy, a newly-minted 5-year old, sleeping soundly past 7am; a rarity. I look at him and his tousled blond resting on pink blanket, at his mind, furiously firing even in slumber, at the piles of potential and possibility gathered up messily underneath the polka dot comforter, and I am just…so…filled with adoration, with gratitude, with love for this little fellow whose personality already bursts forth in bloom day in and day out. What will he become today, tomorrow, a decade hence? I don’t know. I want him and his sister to always know how loved they are are and much love and personality they have to share with others in their social eco-orbit through life. May the sun continue to shine on and through them and reflect hope, possibility, and love of living.
Later, they and their two cousins find a snake. This becomes a significant part of the day.
August 25
When you can end a day, any day, in the front yard with your family, eating at a French bistro table amongst dying grass and decaying house, and smile and laugh and enjoy beans on toast with a gallon of mashed potatoes and gravy on a summery evening…
…well, you gotta call it a halfway decent one, I suppose. That’s the rules of the universe.
September 2015
September 02
Immortalized - Disturbed
October 2015
November 2015
November 13, 11.31pm
Moby’s Destroyed, blogging and reading Sophie’s World, rain outside on a Friday night.
Four kids in the pm. My two at Jonny’s in am. Soup at parental in-laws.
“You know what I really want to do? I really want to watch a scary movie sometime before bed. I think that would be fun.” - our 8-year old
November 15
Listening to Moby’s Destroyed, blogging and reading Sophie’s World, rain outside on a Friday night.
November 21
Watching The Empire Strikes Back with four kids.
November 22, Another weekend, gone
Cliche, but these weeks are moving so FAST. Church with four kids this weekend in the City, Baja Fresh, Cape Horn Falls hike in VERY windy conditions, home for Empire Strikes Back.
A special package for the kids from Lanessa.
Caulking the bathrooms. Lesson: don’t handle fast-dry bathroom caulk with bare hands. Literally three hours scrubbing off.
Listening to The Decemberists and Xavier Rudd & United Nations. Sweet potato curry, cleaning, pre-holiday house stuff. The usual things I didn’t think I’d have to do this year.
December 2015
December 01
Teaching, PT, Doc’s appointment follow-up.
December 02
Teaching, kids with AK in morning, I take four on field trip to Leach Botanical Gardens in afternoon, brothers Jonny and Jamey meet us, plus my 4-year old niece, swimming in Happy Valley, Chuck’s burgers and fries. Full Wednesday, normal-ish Wednesday.
December 03
Work at home. PT with Andy. Ornament decorating at the library, then marching parade of Friends of the Library - and Glenn T. Rainy, cold, dark. Makes sense when we get home and decide to have cold cereal for supper.
Essential Films of 2015
Favorites
The Big Short
The Gift
Inside Out
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
Paper Planes
The Revenant
Room
Sicario
Spotlight
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Honorable mention
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Child 44
The Gift
The Intern
The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Mission Impossible-Rogue Nation
Sicario
Straight Outta Compton
Tomorrowland
Trainwreck
The Wave (Norwegian)
The Witch
All ages
Inside Out
Paper Planes
Tomorrowland
Guilty pleasures
coming soon
Holiday
Want to see
45 Years
A Bigger Splash (Luca Guadagnino)
Anomalisa (animated)
The Assassin
The Best of Enemies (doc about Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley)
Big Sky (Kyra Sedgwick, cannibals, survival. sold)
Brooklyn
Crimson Peak (Del Toro)
Entertainment
Experimenter (about Stanley Milgram)
Evolution
The Forbidden Room
Here’s To The Future!
The Look of Silence (documentary about Indonesian genocide)
Jafar Panahi's Taxi (Iran)
McFarland (Costner running coach)
The Mend
Mississippi Grind (Mendelsohn, R. Reynolds)
Mistress America
Sherpa (Mt. Everest avalanche documentary)
Son of Saul (Hungarian, WWII Auschwitz)
Steve Jobs
Suffragette
Tangerine
Timbuktu (French-Mauritanian drama, Islamic militants)
Special category : films I’d like to see, but probably won’t because of extremely graphic violence I don’t feel like having float around in my head
Bone Tomahawk
Did not like / hated / disappointed
The Hateful Eight
——
Back to Film Index by Year
ESSENTIAL MUSIC OF 2015
11 favorite albums
a-ha - Cast in Steel
Chvrches - Every Open Eye
Kelly Clarkson - Piece by Piece
The Dears - Times Infinity Volume One
Deafheaven - New Bermuda
Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly
Loretta Lynn - Full Circle
Jeff Lynne's ELO - Alone In The Universe
Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell
Honorable Mention
Adele - 25
Ash - Kablammo!
Cage the Elephant - Tell Me I’m Pretty
The Cribs - For All My Sisters
Faith No More - Sol Invictus
Jeff Lynne's ELO - Alone in the Universe
Matt Maher - Saints and Sinners
Modest Mouse - Strangers to Ourselves
Giorgio Moroder - Déjà vu
Natalie Prass - Natalie Prass
Sea of Bees - Build a Boat to the Sun
Tame Impala - Currents
They Might Be Giants - Glean
They Might Be Giants - Why? (children’s album)
The Wainwright Sisters - Songs in the Dark
Wolf Alice - My Love Is Cool
Yukon Blonde - On Blonde
44 favorite tracks of 2015
Luna - Deafheaven
Police Encounters - FFS
Run - AWOLNation
2015 Playlists by Month
January
Run - AWOLNation
Luna - Deafheaven
February
March
Nemesis - Benjamin Clementine
Mainstream Kid - Brandi Carlile
April
May
June
July
Police Encounters - FFS
August
September
October
Brought to the Water - Deafheaven
November
December
Selected Poetry of 2015
Famous - Naomi Shihab Nye
