Kimberly KG

I was struggling to carry a conversation while out running errands with these colors around every corner today.

Watched: Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere 🍿

I enjoyed this movie. Jeremy Allen White is amazing. Jeremy Strong is too. This made me wish I could talk to my dad though. One morning in the eighties over breakfast my dad mentioned that he had had dinner with Bruce Springsteen the night before and yet it was halfway through dinner before my dad realized who he was! My dad was a proud member of the IATSE union for a LONG time and I assume that he had helped with spotlights at a Springsteen show and somehow dinner was involved in that?! I wish I could ask!

I get out of my chair for 1 minute and see what happens?! I got kicked out of my own office.

I was on a Zoom call last night with a bunch of women. The majority of them are at/near retirement age and many of them have YouTube channels with hundreds or maybe even thousands of followers. Most of them also have huge numbers of Instagram followers. The topic of social media came up and someone said “I don’t know what Threads is.” The only response she got was, “It’s Facebook’s answer to Twitter.” I took myself off mute as I tried to think of how to say something about the Fediverse or the Open Web in a way that would land with that audience. The conversation moved on to the difficulty of blocking assholes and trolls if you have an audience of any size before I made up my mind so I just muted myself again.

This seems like a problem.

I would have been really surprised if anyone there mentioned Mastodon, but I was hopeful Bluesky would come up. It did not. Someone did mention not wanting to support Facebook/Meta at all.

It’s still dark when I log into work in the morning currently so I’ve been turning on these white Christmas lights. Calcifer came to visit this morning and he looked cute in the soft light.

I’ve seen various posts joking (or not) about the decision to deploy ALL the software with a single company.

I just got an email from a local sewing company that they are closing for the day because their registers and credit card systems aren’t working.

So much for separation of concerns.

Ally recently joined the woodworking guild and today she’s volunteering with her grandfather (Matt’s dad) at the guild for the first time. They are building toys to be donated to families in need closer to the winter holidays. 🥰

Every Fall I try to pretend it’s still summer just a little bit too long. My thick sweater kept me cozy right up until it started pouring rain just as I started walking to get dinner between meetings.

I feel like a wet dog and can’t get home to change for several more hours. I even looked at my rain jacket right before leaving and decided I’d be fine without it.

Dumb Kim.

Watched: The Godfather 🍿 This movie gets better every time I watch it.

This text from my introverted friend that works at the same large company as my introverted husband made me laugh.

isportlandburning.com 😛

You know when you see a mom or a dad first thing in the morning on TV? They’re fully dressed and look ready to conquer the world? Why doesn’t anyone show the person tiptoeing around in the dark trying not to wake their family while they get dressed and make coffee?

Good morning.

Watched: One Battle After Another 🍿

Others have said that going into this movie not knowing anything is the way to go. I’ll agree with that. It’s great though.

The drama (not sure if that’s the best word) of Trump’s attacks on Portland is weighing on me. I feel like the people at the state level (our state and now California) are doing what they should in terms of pushing back, but it’s ridiculous that this is how they need to be spending their time.

I made a (federated) magazine on Flipboard to keep track of how this evolves.

A lot of the response though has been pretty funny.

• Emergency Naked Bike Ride
• We knit at dawn!
• Grab ‘em by the Couch

Finished reading: Abundance by Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein 📚

Reading any book related to politics now feels like it MUST be out of date, given how quickly things have/are changing in the US. This book though is about how some democratic policies have led to a lot of the struggles we’re having with things like homelessness. It’s a good read.

My daughter recently started watching The X-Files for the first time. 📺 I haven’t watched it since it first aired and I didn’t watch all of it so I’m rewatching it now. Every episode has a moment of “Whoa, it’s that person!” or “Wait, who is that?” immediately followed by “Wow, they are so young!”

“The thing is… she’s short!”

It was so unexpected, I laughed out loud.

I was at lunch with my son. The first week of the term just ended so I was asking him about school. He was in the middle of telling me about a young woman he worked with over the summer that’s also doing a physics and math double major with a nuclear engineering minor. When they met she apparently (jokingly, I assume!) said that he was her nemesis! They are both at the same point along their degree which is surprising given the winding path Sam has taken to land here.

It turns out they have 3 different classes together this term, two of which are scheduled just 10 minutes apart. According to Google Maps, it’s a 15 minute walk.

Ah! I could see where this was going. She told him she couldn’t keep doing that walk with him!

My beautiful child is 6'4". This poor woman is somewhere around 12 to 14 inches shorter. I’m sure the image I have in my head of her jogging to keep up with his long stride is quite exaggerated, but it makes me laugh every time I picture it. He was walking slower to make it easier for her!

He’s planning to offer to speed walk ahead starting tomorrow so he can save them both seats near the front and she doesn’t have to show up out of breath. Hopefully this will convince her that he’s not out to get her. Ha!

I had other plans for today, but I woke up with a notification about this on my phone so I figured I’d go take some pictures around my “war ravaged Portland”.

On my way down town, I stopped by to see Portlanders doing/watching what seems to be everyone’s favorite sport.

I parked near the south waterfront which has been the site of many protests. (Protesting is protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, in case you were wondering.)

I then wandered over to Pioneer Courthouse square which is another place people like to gather.

I then decided to go to the site of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in Portland. If you don’t live in Portland, the story you heard about Portland might have been that these destroyed the city. The reality was far from that. They took place in a 3 block park in front of the Multnomah County justice center and the main lasting damage was the smell from the tear gas used by police.

While I was sitting there enjoying the park, a woman walking by stopped to comment on how lovely it was and how she had promised herself to get outside every day to celebrate our beautiful city.

Some more photos I took while walking through downtown.

The line in front of the Apple store:

About these big protests at the ICE facility that supposedly justify the authorization of “full force” by the military?

This shot includes the full site of the ICE protests.

There were 2 people in lounge chairs on the closer block in the above photo, but this is the rest of everyone protesting.

The line in front of the Apple store (above) has more people.

As for any nearby property damage, this is what I saw.

As I was waiting at the light to leave this area, I did see 12-15 unmarked SUVs with dark windows where the two people in the front seat were all wearing something covering the majority of their faces pulling into the ICE parking lot.

There ARE lots of other protests happening all around town. They involve mostly white or gray haired individuals, many of them sitting on mobility devices, decrying authoritarianism. Is Trump sending the military with authorization for full-force after those people? I suspect many more people would be out there if they didn’t have to work in order to support themselves and their families.

Is this what a war ravaged city looks like?

The cat takes advantage of the recliner every time I try to work there. He’s pretty cute, but then every once in a while he tries to lick his neck hairs which get stuck in his mouth because they’re too long. :laughing: Am I supposed to trim them??

Does he look annoyed or bored to you?