A Bit of Culture

Self Portrait of Me and Jay on the Town. It would be easier to do this if he and I existed in the same Height Zip Code.

Last night Jay and I went to see a play in Portland called Sometimes a Great Notion, based on the book by Ken Kesey. We had a great time. We went down early and ate a yummy dinner at Pastini Pastaria.

After that we wandered around Powell's Bookstore for a while. It's actually called Powell's City of Books and it's the most amazing bookstore. It's the largest used and new bookstore in the world, and occupies an entire city block!! It has nine color coded rooms which are broken down into over 3,500 different sections. One could spend an entire day in there and never leave and never get bored.

My eyes were very red in this photo, so I used red eye correction to fix it. Now I look crosseyed.

We went from Powell's to the playhouse, which was a very modern-style place, with a great lobby with a cafe and two theaters that run simultaneously. A friend of mine from work gave me the tickets. She's been working at Babies for a few weeks, and it's a struggle for her. She tries very hard, but it doesn't come naturally. That's because she's a theater person, and always has been. So it was fun for me to see Patty in her natural element last night, being the House Manager in the theater and being great at it. Everybody has their thing, and theater is Patty's thing.

The play was interesting. As we were walking into the theater, there was a large sign posted on the door that said, "Warning: This play contains nudity, profanity, smoking, and theatrical haze." Oh. But it wasn't bad. Well, there was plenty of swearing, since the play is about Oregonian loggers back in the 1950's or so. And they swore a LOT. The nudity was extremely brief and completely unnecessary, but I guess that's how Ken Kesey wrote, and the playwright felt it necessary to give him his dues. And maybe it sells more tickets. Who knows? The play was well-acted, if a little dry. The locals got some huge belly laughs from the many digs about Oregon weather, especially the winter rain. They were funny lines, I suppose, if you're from here. Because how is constant rain and gray clouds funny??

Here's a picture of one of my favorite scenes. The two guys in front are brothers fighting over the same woman. And the guys in back clap everytime someone throws a punch. I liked to see if I could have timed the punches better. Probably not.

On the way home, we got crazy and stopped at McDonald's for dessert. We tried for caramel sundaes but they didn't have caramel. So we settled for Hot Apple Pies and Coca Cola. Yummy!!!