Schnitzer art museum

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Originally uploaded by Mrs. Piggs

My SiL kept telling us we'd like the Hideway Bakery, so we tried it this morning. She was right! I'm trying hard to keep to normal eating, so I had oatmeal, but later we split a pain au chocolate and I tasted Z's turnover. Everything was good. Z had her turnover, then a breakfast sandwich with eggs, then asked for another. (We said no.)

On campus at the U of O, there's a lovely small art museum. We saw several exhibits, and I am torn between what my favorite was. I like the Japanese room a lot, and they have a HUGE jade pagoda, but there was a room of modern art that included a couple beautiful, hazy, reflective metallic window-type things that were just kind of calming. I dunno.

Then we dithered for a bit and went to the park to play. I was cracking up at the water/sand play area. They have this big structure, and every ten minutes or so, water comes running through this central channel and into the sand. The kids were having this serious state-government-type conversation about whether to build a dam, where, with what materials, and who could do it the fastest (no word on the lowest bid). Then there were conservationists who worried about the flow of water downriver of the dam and a couple eco-terrorist toddlers who kept knocking it down.

Then it was sort of a kick-around evening. Z and I went to watch M play volleyball and I chatted with my father-in-law. Every time I ask him a direct question about his youth or Iran, he has an interesting story to tell. He first came here in 1958, and he had to take a prop plane all the way from Iran. It stopped all the time, including in Beirut, which was at war. The stewardesses told him to stay in the airport and where to get food.

And Zadie actually admitted that she was tired (I tried not to show my shock), so we came back here and I put her to bed.

The weather has been lovely here. As cousin J and I were walking towards the park, it was 80 degrees, and he complained, "It's really hot." I said, "You think this is hot? How quaint."

Zadie has been getting a LOT of mileage out of her jokes, one of which is: What do you call cheese that doesn't belong to you? Nacho cheese! But I'm not entirely sure she gets it, because she's been imposing a lot of other words onto that structure, and it has gotten pretty Dadaist at times. Tonight's joke was "What do you call a person without any clothes on? Naked!" Yeah. I'm warning you people -- when we get home, do NOT laugh, or she'll repeat this nonsense over and over ad nauseum.

I'm not getting much reading in, but when i am, I'm getting all sorts of ideas for our front yard landscaping. I'm also tired as heck, so goodnight, sweet princes and princesses.