Archive for the ‘Holidays’ Category

Best of the Salem Blogs: November

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

Happy Salemversary to me and my husband! It was two years ago today that we drove the last eight hours across Oregon in the winter from our last cross-country overnight in Idaho, arriving in West Salem at 3:42 p.m.

Much has changed since then. And much has changed in the blogging community in Salem.

It seems like we’re seeing new voices and new sites every week, old ones revamping to great effect (check out the great wintry photo topping Salemites and reposted above, courtesy of Nate Rafn).

Here are some blog posts to revisit from November:

1.Droll Exhaust. What are blogs good for, you ask? For getting a glimpse into the crazy mind of your fellow humans. Take my dear Jugbo, master tweeter and writer of Droll Exhaust, who instead of participating in Black Friday, decided to track down 75 versions of Paint it Black and listen to them all.  It’s seasonal, it’s timely, it’s slightly crazy. I like. Now he needs a follow up critiquing each and every version.

2. Look What’s Happening in Salem. Didn’t read a lot of recaps from the Oregon School for the Deaf Nightmare Factory (I was content to watch it on television, with the distance of obvious digital video cuts to temper the experience), but Rebekah did put together a critical one. The best part of her argument? That more tricks makes it less scary. This, people, is why the State Hospital (before renovation, of course), will always be scarier than a staged haunted house.

3. That Sounds Pretty Good. Finally, someone shouting out Rob at La Capitale. All great bartenders deserve love letters like this one, and Rob especially.

4. The Pringle Creek Community Library. Everyone in Salem who cares about sustainability and Salem’s part in moving the movement should be paying attention to Pringle Creek. The latest news from the community is its Urban Farmer Certification, geared towards people in their 20s and 30s. The monthly class taught by OSU extension master gardeners and sponsored by the Friends of Salem Saturday Market teaches people how to grow their own organic vegetables. Great news, sure, but Pringle Creek also does something else impeccably well: craft compelling informational, organizational blog posts.

5. Hellcat Betty. For sweet reminders of what the holidays are all about. If you’ve been following her at all, you know that she’s an army wife who writes often about the struggles of being separated from her deployed husband. I don’t know about you, but I for one am happy to see deployed soldiers home for the holidays. Kudos also for a great, festive blog title.

Posted in Holidays, Media | 5 Comments »

Look who showed up at my house for Halloween

Monday, November 1st, 2010

We had nine people show up without costumes for trick-or-treating last night. Some of them were morose teenagers, but two were adults and three were the kind of children you want to see on your doorstep for this holiday.

We live in the kind of neighborhood where you can’t really hide from the effects of the recession. We’re not in the thick of it — I like to think of the microhood as this little island amid much mess — but we’re close enough to Lancaster Drive and some multi-unit housing that we can’t really turn our backs on people who have less than we do.

And then comes Halloween, a time that I’ve always looked forward to as a way to meet some neighbors who, perhaps, aren’t so in-your-face friendly. At Halloween, the shared joy of child-raising, I imagined, could create enough commonality that we could learn names, faces, enough to maybe raise a hand or nod a head next time around.

But this year took a sad turn. We had 62 people show up at our door — an exciting turnout — and a fifth of them didn’t have costumes on.

Perhaps you might say these are those too-cool-for-school teenage segment, but when I asked some of the kids where there costumes were (as is my right as a candy-bearing home-dweller) I was met with:

“We’re too poor to buy costumes.”

First of all, that’s a bunch of bunk. My neighbor (who isn’t poor) put together an awesome costume with little more than some electrical tape.

But some of the people on my door really did look pretty hard up, and they weren’t costumed as poor people. They were in street clothes. At one point, I thought of handing out canned goods instead of Skittles.

Next year, I might switch out the Twix for some food bars or dried fruit. Not in place of candy, but in addition to it.

The Demons of D Street 2010:

1 cheerleader
6 fairies
2 Transformers
1 Mike Meyers
4 Ornery unclad teenagers
1 Spidergirl
1 Spiderman
1 scary jester
3 princesses
1 jailor
1 convict (that I know of)
1 gorilla in a wheelchair
2 anonymous, hard-off adults who needed food
1 adult Gandalf
1 Munch’s Scream
1 sorcerer
1 vampire
1demoness
1 80s dancer
1 80s skeleton
1 warlock
1 bag of candy
1 zombie
1 disaffected teenage father who claimed his little girl’s “candy had been stolen” and he had to trick-or-treat for more
3 boys with no costumes
1 cow
2 brides
1 “not a morning person”
2 bees
2 witches
1 Harijuku girl (actual Japanese exchange student; who excitedly informed us: “You’re my first house on my first Halloween!”
1 cat
1 hobo
1 naughty nurse
1 grim reaper
1 “Skullsor,” whatever that is
1 Hannah Montana (whom my husband welcome by saying: “And you’re a witch?”)
1 sexy zebra (um… I know)
3 “Jerkers” (uncostumed teenagers)
4 uncostumed tweens

If you’ve got too much candy, don’t forget you can exchange it for real, delicious food at these Candy Exchanges today.

Posted in Food, Holidays | 6 Comments »

The new mom gets mommed

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

I have spent the past few days doing  everything and nothing at all with my mom, who is visiting us from the East Coast.

Mom has made three trips to Salem since we had the Goober-Doo last December, and this time, she took three flights to get here.

Three flights!

Her luggage, strangely, took only two flights and arrived about five hours earlier than she did.

Lucky Luggage.

It was waiting there in the Horizon Air baggage terminal, stamping its little wheel and saying: What took you so long.

She arrived to find some oddities in my house — for one, I had scrubbed the kitchen floor  ceremoniously for her arrival. But I also made her some moussaka and some mummy cupcakes (above), though admittedly, these items don’t go together in any coherent way.

It has been a luxurious few days for me.  I have spent the past few days going out with friends who haven’t really seen me socially for months, shopping for clothes, eating slowly and mindfully, sleeping in just a bit, and sharing the quiet and lovely moments of life at home with a 10-month-old baby.

In short, this mama has been getting mommed.

What was I thinking to move so far away from my family? Was I wrong to think that the life that you create for yourself, hand-picked and curated to fit with your values and lifestyle habits and work choices was a bit misguided? Is it wrong to move across the country because you have a fascination with mushroom hunting and you have always wanted to live between the forest and the ocean?  (Yes). What’s the point if you’re stuck at home with a baby all day anyway and your own mama is miles away enjoying the high life as a retiree? Do you launch a winning hearts and minds campaign to entice her to move closer? (Also, yes).

We’ve got a great itinerary for this week, one that is delightfully freewheeling and mundane. Lots of shopping, cooking, talking. I had more fun yesterday than I have had in months, and all we did was got to Kelly’s and test out those Nespresso coffee machines.

Today, we went through the baby’s wardrobe, which has ballooned to become more varied and interesting than mine (thanks to my mom).

We might go to the Kroc Center for a swim, we might go to Woodburn, we might visit Mt. Angel, we might head to A.C. Gilbert, we might just stay home. Whatever we do, it is mighty wonderful to have the option of doing it together.

Go hug your mummies.

Posted in Family, Food, Holidays, Home | 4 Comments »

Salem’s most frightening front yards

Saturday, October 23rd, 2010

One of my favorite blog commenters introduced me to a new term the other day: the Halloween Grinch.

That’s someone who hates the outpouring of sentiment over the ghostliest of holidays.

Clearly, Sophie doesn’t live in my neighborhood. Otherwise, she might just get a full-body roil every time she passes this house, just one of the homes in my neighborhood that has exploded in  a show of ghoulish delight over the past few days.

We’ve got quite a few of them.

This one above you might call:

Six Flew Out of the Cuckoo’s Nest (note the hospital theme, some of these zombies have walkers!)

In our near vicinity we also have:

  • The Stay Puft Pumpkin People (these are the neighbors who employ those inflatable pumpkins and ghosts)
  • The Strange Fruit House — a beyond-the-pale installation of several lynched monsters, zombies  and ghosts that I hear angers quite a few residents of 24th Street NE.

I’m one of those live-and-let decorate neighbors, but I can’t really stomach the Strange Fruit House. It reminds me a little bit of a home I grew up near whose inhabitants hung an anonymous Arab on from the branches of its front tree at the height of the Gulf War.

You just can’t lynch a bunch of zombies in your front yard without tapping into the cultural and historical act of lynching.

“It’s like trying to slow dance to Billie Holiday’s  “Strange Fruit,” my husband just said to me as I typed this. “It’s just wrong.”

Also, you can’t kill a zombie  by lynching it.

Duh.

Posted in Capital Shots, Holidays | 8 Comments »

The Wait Continues

Monday, December 21st, 2009

Hello. You’ve reached the no-baby hotline. There is no baby here at this number. We take each and every call we receive seriously and look forward to communicating with you soon.  In the meantime, thank you very much for calling. BEEEEEEEEEP!

Posted in Holidays | 9 Comments »

Christmas Trees in the Land of the Doug Fir

Monday, November 30th, 2009

Last year, Adam convinced me that we didn’t need to get a Christmas tree.

We were shuffling between an apartment in West Salem and our current abode in Northeast Salem and were waiting for our moving truck to arrive between December 1 and 10th. It didn’t come until the 18th, and we were unpacking through the New Year.

I’m still holding a grudge.

For even if we had just hung up a branch of greens and strung some popcorn on it, it would have made me feel a little less alone in our new city at the holidays.

This year, I claimed, would be different. This year, I would get my first-ever family-appropriate Christmas tree and heavy its limbs with ornaments. This year, I would have a tree by the beginning of December.

Now I’m sure you’ve seen the trees lining the makeshift tree lots in parking lots all over town by now. They are a decent way to get your hands on a tree.

But the truly Oregonian way is to do it like my friend Jan and her family does it — make a trip out to the Willamette National Forest and cut one down yourself.

This is a legal program run by the U.S. Forest Service. If you don’t include the cost of gas to Detroit, Ore., this tree will also run you a pleasing $5 permit fee and a little back and arm labor.

But I fear my husband’s conspicuous modesty, one of his most darling traits, has won out yet again. For we have decided to accept a dear little throwaway tree from our new Salem friends, who spent the weekend landsculpting their new backyard in a 1950s Salem neighborhood.

Adam picked this tiny Tannenbaum out, repotted him, shaped him as if he were the most prized bonsai, and stuck him in the corner, on top of an antique end table that houses many of my old paperbacks. We strung him with LED bulbs and ornaments I picked up in Germany.  After Christmas, we’re planting him in the yard.

The only drawback of choosing such small shrubbery is that he doesn’t exactly fill the room with the crisp scent of Christmas. But I guess that’s why I picked up that fir-scented candle back in October.

I’m already in love with this tree. We really only needed a little Christmas, right this very minute, and that’s what we’ve got.

Posted in Holidays, Shopping | 3 Comments »

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