Fertile Ground

Walked to Artists Rep for a reading of Confabulous, a comedy about dementia. Really, about how an imperfect family deals with dementia.  And each other.  The play has potential, but needs to be polished a bit more.

Oregon Zoo

A clear day. I walked up into Washington Park and followed the trails to the zoo for one last visit in January.

Fertile Ground

A reading of Mate, about Bobby Fischer.  The first bit was all about the teen-aged Bobby and sex.  Or rather, about not-sex.   Utterly stereotypical and not very interesting.  It might have gotten better later, but I didn't stick around to see.

Fertile Ground

Welcome to Zion

A musical this time, about a teenager coming out to his Mormon parents.  Only the first act was done, but it was well polished.  And damned good.  I want to see it when it's finished.

Fertile Ground

Small bites

A half-dozen or so of 10-minute plays.  Comedies, mostly.  And some of them were quite funny.

Fertile Ground

38 Minutes

A play in 3 acts, set in a hotel on Hawaii on the day that the mistaken missile alert happened.  Three couples, dealing with their own family issues, are faced with sudden potential catastrophe.  Which does tend to focus the mind.

(Didn't stay to the end, as there was a medical emergency half-way through, and I decided to give the paramedics a bit of room.)

Fertile Ground

To the Moon

Roadkill, asperger's, whimsy, and love.  A tale told in reverse chronological order. (With one character called River, a surefire tell.)  A bit uneven, with a rocky start, but with a sweet ending.  I have no idea how it could possibly be staged.  The first scene has an astronaut tumbling off the surface of the moon.  The two main characters are played by 4 different actors, of differing ages.  And they have to be different  actors because at one point they're all on stage at the same time.  And there's also an identical twin brother who has to have at least two actors.

Meeting

An urban sketchers business meeting.  At which, of course, people were sketching. 

Music

A jam at the hostel, in conjunction with the old time music gathering going on nearby.

Sketchcrawl on Pill Hill

With more bridges

We started out in a solid fog.  That came and went, with buildings and views appearing and then fading away again.

I started out with the skybridge, standing near the entrance to Doernbecher.

When I first started, the bridge disappeared into the mist.  But as I worked a ghostly image of the VA hospital emerged behind it.

When I got done with that I emerged from the other end of Doernbecher and wandered off in search of other bridges.  I found one that led to an elevator to a parking lot and, looking back at Doernbecher, realized that its entrance, where I'd stood and sketched the skybridge, was yet another bridge.  So I sketched that bridge, from this bridge.

And then headed down to the top of the parking garage to sketch this bridge.

Icon

Done at Trinity Cathedral's final Taize service.

Bridge over Balch Creek

The middle one, that spans the waterfall.

Music

Romeo and Juliet

Specifically, the senior-citizen version, put on by OPS, in which the lovers (and fighters) are old farts, and those who used to be their parents and elders are now their children, trying to deal with their troublesome aging parents.

Tybalt, the 'prince(ss) of cats' had gray hair, but was still trim enough to fit into a cat-suit.  Everyone else who died on stage needed help getting back up again at the curtain.

The Zoo Again

Another trip, on another dry afternoon, to see what I'd missed last week.

This one was in the "African Swamp", where I'd gone for the sole purpose of warming up my numb fingers.  But found a stationary crocodile posing for me.

And this one was motionless as well.  She'd caught sight of one of the painted dogs in an exhibit across the way, and was in full-on hunting mode.

Fremont Bridge

...from the steps of the Montessori School on Thurman.

Painted Ladies

Done from the warmth of the hostel cafe.  With yet another new building rising up beyond.