Oregon Trail

In school we are studying the Oregon Trail. It is so cool! We are making covered wagons out of shoeboxes and for homework we write in a journal and pretend we are someone travling the Oregon Trail. Some people did go to Portland, Oregon, so I wonder if someone who went on the trail settled right on the spot you are living on now, Amy! It was really hard on the people trying to get to Oregon or California. One time a bunch of people got stuck in the Rocky Mountains in winter and were so starving they ate their dead friends!!! I would not have liked to go on the trail back then.

big time

Yesterday Tarp and I went for a walk down by the river near my house. I’ve been trying to think through a really big project.

Portland is also called Bridgetown. I am often thinking of all the wonderful potential each of these eight bridges offers. SOOOOOO, what if I could do a puppet show off of one of the bridges! On our walk, Tarp and I scoped out the possibilities in each of the bridges. We judged them based on accessibility to the viewers (can you see it from the banks of the river), height (I think puppet shows look better when they have tall stages), and stage-like look to the bridge structure. At the moment, I think the Morrison Bridge would be the best.

The Morrison Bridge can be seen from the park walkways on either side of the river. It has a nice arch to it that is very tall at its top. As well, the Morrison Bridge is lit up very nicely at night and I think it would be more appealing to perform this at night so that you could eliminate the cityscape and make an actual backdrop that would not be lost in the hustle and bustle of our river city.

Audio, you ask? Well, I think that setting up a short-wave transistor radio with the script of the puppet show broadcasting would be ideal. In the promotion for the show, you could tell people to bring their battery operated radio or their walkmans (do people still have walkmans now that iPod is taking over the world?) and then tune in to listen to the audio for the show. YES!

Big project, I know. But what better way to start the new year than to go big idea.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! I havn't done a blog in a while, so I thought I would. I was just sewing on a sewing machine I got for Christmas, and I never knew how easy it was! Setting up the thread and everything is kind-of hard, but the actual sewing part is easy. I can't wait to make all sorts of things. I just made a sachet for my friend. My sister Hannah sent some fabric from Costa Rica and I'm going to use it to make pillows. My sister Julianna is making a coat for her American Girl doll.

Goodtime Jesus

Seeing as we are nearing the holidays,
I thought I'd post my favorite James Tate poem:

Goodtime Jesus
Jesus got up one day a little later than usual. He had been dream-
ing so deep there was nothing left in his head. What was it?
A nightmare, dead bodies walking all around him, eyes rolled
back, skin falling off. But he wasn't afraid of that. It was a beau-
tiful day.  How 'bout some coffee? Don't mind if I do. Take a little
ride on my donkey, I love that donkey. Hell, I love everybody.

Hebrew Homework

Every week I take hebrew lessons. Last week my homework was to make a picture out of only natral materials. I drew my picture on a piece of bark using a mixture of ash, coal and water. It was hard because every time you made a mistake you would have to wipe it off with water wich would weaken the bark and it would be really hard to draw on the part with water, wich takes a long time to dry.

good presence

It is kind of a joke in the family that I give the worst presents. All three of the youngest seours in the family have their birthdays very near each other and every year I have a hell of a time getting good presents together on time, let alone the fact that Hanukkah and Christmas (of which we celebrate both, but that is another post, don't you think, Kate?) follow those dates very soon after and then my mother's birthday is just after the new year and well....it may sound like I'm making excuses. Which I am.

Anyhow, this year my friend showed me this amazing item, pictured here. Squirt gun? No, banana guard. Wow. The website promises to protect your banana from transport trauma and deliver a fresh and unbruised banana to wherever you want to go. So, I thought that I would just buy one for everyone before I left to go home to Maine for the first Christmas in a very long time. What a perfect gift! They even have glow-in-the-freakin'-dark! Who cares why you would ever need a glow-in-the-dark banana guard... So I counted up that I would need eight to sufficiently guard each of my family member's lunchtime banana, as our family has recenlty grown now that I am engaged to be married. And when I entered in the number 8 for my order it told me it would cost over $50 for such a purchase. I thought there are a lot of better ways I can spend $50 (which, honestly is why I am such a crappy present person, because I always battle with the expense of useless stuff that I'm not sure people really want...not that a banana guard is useless), so I wondered if I should just get a few banana guards. And I wondered who in our family should get one. Bruce, probably. He likes this kind of pragmatic technology. Hannah would probably laugh really hard, which is usually what I think about when I buy her things because she has the most pretty laugh in the world. Julianna would at first give an exasperated look to me, like I was wasting her time. But then she, too would laugh really hard and she has a laugh that makes everyone laugh harder. Kate would immediately love it, because we usually really like the same kind of things, it seems. Anyway...I went through my mind imaginging each of the family members and realized I couldn't just get one. And, thus got none and am not spoiling any surprise by posting a photo of this awesome invention.

But that is how holiday giving goes for me. I don't get excited sending presents, because I love anticipating how people will react to gifts, particularly when they are handmade, which most of mine end of being and I always want to be there to see their reaction. I am so happy that I will be with all of my family this year and even though I haven't had much time to make or buy any presents, I am really excited to have this anticipation in my mind through these cold, dark days in Oregon. Kate, Julianna and their mother, Ellen will recite beautiful Jewish prayers. Dad will be really hyper and only settle down long enough to read "The Night Before Christmas." Hannah and Bruce will make inappropriate, hilarious jokes. My mom will give us perfect gifts, because she always knows what we like. Tarp will be with me, which is rare now that he lives in California to attend graduate school. And he doesn't know this, but Kate and I are going to teach him to ice skate. It is going to be great!

I really like to play soccer. Here are some pictures from the 2004 soccer season. My favorite position is defence, but goalie is up there to. I play on the Colts travel team. We play other teams from Maine. Some really hard teams to beat are Merry Meeting and Costal. Soccer is most definitely my favorite sport. I also like tennis, swimming and I like to watch football with my dad. I play hocky against my dad and sister too.
~Katherine :-) (that's a smiley)