GOOD NEWS

March 7, 2023March 18, 2023 / janpriddyoregon / 5 Comments

Our granddaughter had her second heart surgery this morning. It went well. Minimally invasive and she may go home this afternoon. Incredible.

*This photo shows a* *trapezoid, but is in a rectangular frame I already had, photographed at an angle to avoid most of the glare on the glass. The* crying bird appliqué is by a friend who is living in exile and missing her home, but still making art. I’d lost track of Marina for a few weeks after she left Etsy, and then I discovered her posting on Behance and was able to get in contact and send her a card with a pieced leaf. She sent me a card in return that included this incredible hand-stitched linen piece. The crocheted cotton gloves on each side were my grandmother’s. Ladies used to wear gloves in public places. I am old enough to remember my mother putting on a hat and gloves to go shopping downtown.

There’s more goodness…

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GRAY ANATOMY

March 30, 2022March 30, 2022 / janpriddyoregon / 8 Comments

Since I began weaving in earnest, I’ve been rewatching television online, shows I’ve already seen, or tried to see, when they first aired. Monk. Psych.

Just now, it’s Grey’s Anatomy.

***How this tree had grown. Sometimes a log drifts onshore and is just too incredible to ignore.***

But I’m not really all that interested in these shows or even in telling about the weaving I am getting done, though that will surely be part of my post today. I’m interested to see what else…

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DENIAL?

January 10, 2021January 12, 2021 / janpriddyoregon / 6 Comments

Gary is downstairs listening to a CD from The Searchers, his favorite group from the 60s (they were still playing a year ago). I have spent several days working on a poem for a local event. (With my luck they will not like it, but honest, I couldn’t write a cheerful “pandemic” poem. Others will.) As I sent it off as an email attachment I had word that the gallery is taking down the show the end of the month. They did not sell anything of mine (or from two other people). Yes, disappointing. But the poem . . . here’s the first stanza:

 Birds fell from the sky this past
 summer, a warning as defiling as riots 
 and bloody marble, the risk of living 
 in dangerous times when all times 
 prove dangerous.

Waves washed up into our hedge this morning, but it settled back for our afternoon walk.

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PHISH

May 29, 2020May 29, 2020 / janpriddyoregon / 2 Comments

My final offer for lower credit card interest rates came via a phone call just the other day. That’s not the last time I will receive it because despite the sincerity of the young woman’s tone and message and her assurance that they have been trying to contact me several times and this is my last chance, she’s lying. (And I really do not care about lowering my credit card interest rates because I have paid off my credit cards each month since my sons graduated from college.) My other credit card sent me a letter lowering our credit line because we’ve failed to use our card. The New Yorker keeps making their final offer—today it was $5 subscriptions—but then they will back in a couple of weeks offering me a tote bag to subscribe. The New York Times too. A few years ago I did not want information about aluminum siding because I have cedar shingle siding. I do not want a lot of things that telemarketers persist in offering—not replacement windows or senior housing or life insurance. Limited time offer. For a few weeks in March and April, we received no sales calls at all, and Gary and I looked at one another and said: Well, there’s something coming from the coronavirus. Continue reading →

MEDIA MOB

December 18, 2019 / janpriddyoregon / 6 Comments

My husband and I love films and we have seen a great many of them. We avoid the bad ones, when we are aware they are going to be bad. Lately, “bad” has become such a relative term that even Rotten Tomatoes seems unable to warn us away from films we dislike. We wasted over $30 seeing Knives Out (or Up or In or whatever). The overpriced popcorn and Milk Duds were the best part. I hasten to assure you that everyone else in the theater seemed to love the film. They laughed a great deal more than we did, did not seem to mind Craig’s silly accent or the pathetic attempts at political pandering or the way the main character (vomiting on cue—that was only funny once and not the first time) was used as a cliché victim. The predictable plot twists even seemed to surprise people. Really? If you loved the newest version of Murder on the Orient Express, you will find a familiar scenario here. This is the cartoon version where everyone but the ingenue is despicable. If you thought that mustache on Branagh was ridiculous, well, consider yourself warned.

On the other hand, we had relatively low expectations for The Good Liar, the overall twist was expected, but, you know, Helen Mirren. That one was fun.

In the mean time, the single best film entertainment we’ve enjoyed recently has been on Netflix. Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories has two seasons (2016 and 2019), just twenty 28-minute episodes, and some are deeply touching and some are spectacular. A couple have been flat out sad, but mostly they are something more subtle. Newsweek declares it “the best show no one is watching.” As we near the end of the second season, we’re dolling them out one at a time to make them last. We never skip the opening sequence . . . and apparently others feel the same way about “Omiede.”

There have been many more shots and films we enjoyed this year. Gary credits me with finding Midnight Diner, and promising is was short and we could turn it off if we didn’t like it. He says it’s on the level with Detectorists, which is his all-time favorite. Its funny and dear to us both.