Category — Mixed Bag

Rebar. Plastic bags. Gasoline cans. Art? This weekend, there were dozens of artists at the Recycled Arts Festival in Vancouver who have transformed the rusted, the plastic and the bound-for-the-landfill into collector’s items. Esther Short Park was lined with more than 80 vendors displaying remarkable reuse talents. Thank you Clark County Environmental Services for a great event! A few lessons stood out:

1. I don’t have to feel guilty about those (now rusty) garden tools I left in the rain.

Rusty tools can create great yard art

More information available at Howling Heights Metal Designs

2. Plastic bags can become a thing of beauty.

If you can crochet, you can create beautiful bags and rugs from plastic bags

Lots of products available through Molly J Walter

3. Those splintery chopsticks from my favorite Chinese restaurant can have a new life.

Who knew that chopsticks were so versatile?

There are lots of choices to purchase at Kwytza Chopstick Art .

4. The bowling balls I have been collecting are just begging to be beautified.

Way more interesting than Victorian gazing garden balls

Visit Ta-Dah Handmade about artwork and classes.

5. My collection of out-of-style sweaters could become in-style, felted hats.

These sweaters look great as hats!

Visit Sweater Heads for a great selection.

6. You can teach an old, red gasoline can new tricks as a dog.

Low maintenance pet - perfect for empty nesters

More information available at Howling Heights Metal Designs

7. A cigar box wants to make music.

These cigar box instruments can even be amplified

Alan Matta at Hammered Frets has the details on his instruments at hammeredfrets@gmail.com

8. Wine bottles recycled into jewelry can be way more interesting than gemstones.

Beautiful glass beads made from wine and beer bottles

Learn about hand-torched, glass bead jewelry at Late Night Lampworks

9. Vases, light fixtures and other glassware can become stunning, luminescent statues for the garden.

These glass art pieces will never stop blooming in your garden

For details about these sculptures, email vondaquilts@comcast.net or visit their Facebook page Tiffany on a Stick.

10. Every nut and bolt deserves another chance.

Nuts and bolts start new lives

More work available at Fairy Forge.

Got stuff? Avoid the landfill. Get out there and start re-creating!

by Julia Anderson
Kayakers from throughout Southwest Washington gathered on the East Fork of the Lewis River in Clark County on Saturday for a competition they call “creek boating or creeking.” Some 40 competitors sized up Sunset Falls with its roaring spring run off before testing themselves against other kayakers and rafters on a timed course.

Creeking on the East Fork of the Lewis River

Sponsored by Alder Creek Kayak with a store on Hayden Island and Next Adventure, an outdoor gear store in Portland, the event is one of several hosted by organizers of Northwest Creeking Competition, a loose group of kayak enthusiasts.

On Saturday, the parking lot at Sunset Falls, east of Battle Ground and south of Yacolt was filled with kayaker vehicles, trailers and gear and lots of fans including a large number of dogs (on leashes). Volunteers staffed a registration booth with race fees ranging from $10 to $20 depending on the event.

Believe it or not, kayaking can take many forms…hard-shell long- and short-boats, inflatable kayaks and even rafts with both men’s and women’s races. About mid-day, two-man rafts were plunging over the falls with a few landing upside down with their paddlers forced to swim. Don’t worry, despite the sunny warmer weather most competitors were wearing dry suits to protect against cold water temperatures. The day ended with a raffle and barbeque.

For more information on Northwest Creeking Competition, visit http://www.northwestcreekcomp.org/

Gung Hay Fat Choy! We wish you prosperity! This is a greeting for Chinese New Year. This year, the 14-day holiday begins on Sunday, February 14.

Lion Dance at the Chinese New Year Celebration in Vancouver

In 2004, husband Gary and I had the great, good fortune of celebrating Chinese New Year, The Year of the Monkey, in Hong Kong. A post-SARS tourist recruitment deal with VIP seats at the Chinese New Year parade, fireworks, day tours and other enticements lured us to this fascinating city. Upon our arrival, we joined the shopping throngs in the flower market of Kowloon, where we bought yellow chrysanthemums (for longevity) for our hotel room and ahhhed over all the red decorations. Ever since, we have celebrated the Chinese New Year at home.

Last year, a friend and excellent chef made a multi-course Chinese dinner for 13 at our house to celebrate the New Year. This year, we attended the Vancouver Chinese New Year celebration sponsored by the Friends of the Cascade Park and Vancouver Community Libraries. The event included an energetic lion dance by the Portland Lee’s Association Lion Dance Team and a giggle-inciting “Images of China” puppet show by Dragon Art Studio plus dance and singing groups – a lucky way to celebrate 2010, The Year of the Tiger, the year of both our births.

The dates of the New Year differ between Asian countries. Vancouver’s Vietnamese community celebrated the holiday on January 30 with a large community event. Portland’s big celebration will be an eight-hour Chinese New Year Cultural Fair on February 14 at the Oregon Convention Center. There are many other events scheduled at the Lan Su Chinese Garden (formerly the Portland Classical Chinese Garden) at NW 3rd and Everett from February 14 through February 28.

It’s time to plan your own celebration. Here are six ideas for celebrating the Chinese New Year:

1. Call your favorite Chinese restaurant and ask if they are offering any special foods or menus for the Chinese New Year. If not, go any way and order a multi-course banquet. Chinese families often eat Buddha’s Delight, fish and dumplings to kickoff the holiday. Mandarin oranges are popular, too.

2. Plan your own feast at home. In Vancouver, the International Market (3216 E. Fourth Plain Blvd) should have the ingredients you need.

3. Visit some import stores for new year’s decorations. These aren’t easy to find in SW Washington. I hate to send you across the river but…great places for decorations are the import stores across the street from the Lan Su Chinese Garden and the amazing Fubonn Shopping Center, where you will also find foods from all over the Asian world.

4. Pick up some red, lucky money envelopes (hong bao) (available in Vancouver at the International Market mentioned above) for children and unmarried family or friends and distribute them with money in an even amount. ($8 would be especially lucky because 8 is a lucky number in Chinese culture.)

5. Decorate with fresh flowers. Chrysanthemums (longevity), narcissus (prosperity) and plum blossoms (luck) are three options. Bamboo plants are good year-round choices, too.

6. Visit your relatives. This is the time of year that Chinese people around the world travel home to make “new-year visits” to relatives and friends. Visit YOUR family! Wear red and take them some mandarin oranges! Have a great time and don’t forget to tell them Gung Hay Fat Choy!

For more information about the history and traditions of the Chinese New Year, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year.

The year was 1928. Harold “Hal” Coppone was murdered. Someone was a murderer. Everyone had a motive and an opportunity. Who did it?

The suspects. Who murdered Hal Coppone?

We gathered in the backroom of a speakeasy. I, Malissa F. “Scoop” Orrthot, a newspaper reporter, wanted to get there first to observe the other guests but four invitees beat me to the scene. I arrived with Eddie “Socks” R. Gyle still wearing his plus fours knickerbockers and pink plaid socks from the golf course. I’ve always been attracted to a man in argyles.

Scanning the room, I checked out a suspicious group, all drinking liquor in teacups – S. Treighton Harrow, that straight but sleazy D.A., Billy “The Kid” Thrower, a baseball player who knew how to throw a game in more ways than one, Molly M. Awbsterr, a flapper and so-called “socialite,” and Silky M. Adam, whom we knew (and her girls) from the Everlay Club. Windy City blues singer, Anna Maria Carlotta “Torchy” Sassine arrived with Ernie G. Ambler, a bigtime gambler, a few minutes later.

We had all been a little on edge since Hal was released from prison. We all knew him and were shocked, some more than others, when he was found murdered in his own vault. Oh, the blood and bullets! But WHO did it? I had my own motives but wanted to dig to the bottom of these suspicious Chicagoans to get the real scoop.

One of us was well-trained with knives and tommy guns, in spite of her feminine wiles. One got kickbacks from mobsters, who then avoided the legal system. Hal, mobster that he was, had done a number on all of us in some way.

There were a LOT of clues to examine. I scribbled notes in my reporter’s pad but it was hard to keep the facts straight. Some of those yokels even thought that I might have done it. I confess. It’s true that I had my reasons to bump off Hal.

The “iced tea” flowed freely as we interrogated each other through a Shrimps de Jonghe (a Chicago-specialty) dinner. We sorted through way too many clues but finally, one-by-one, each accused a suspect.

I admit it. I got it wrong. (Or did I do it? I’m not saying…) Who did it? You’ll have to do your own mystery dinner party, maybe on a cold, rainy evening like us, to find out…

I have a confession. I HATE to make cookies. I have never enjoyed mixing dough. I’m impatient when the little darlings are in the oven. And we have a vintage Wedgewood stove from the 1950s which is strong on design and collectability, but has a runaway thermostat. Turn your back and your cookies are deflagrating at 500+ degrees.

So why did I, a total morning person, stay up until midnight last night, mixing batch after batch of high-cal morsels, starting over with brand new ingredients (thanks for going to the store, Gary) after discovering a weevil, artfully (sort of) twisting red and white dough into candy cane shapes, while totally trashing my kitchen with powdered sugar and wayward flour? Because I LOVE my neighbors and am willing to wrangle with my oven and stay up past my usual 9:15 bedtime to hang out with them at a cookie exchange. And, of course, it was worth it.

Our neighbors Caitlyn, Jerrad, and Ivy are incredibly creative. They set up a lovely gathering with boxes, ribbon and decorative stamps for packaging the cookies plus lots of appetizers and drinks. With each of us bringing six dozen cookies, the table was thoroughly bedecked with holiday treats.

Why do a cookie exchange? Our neighbors came up with lots of reasons. Here are 5.5 of our favorites:

1. You get to find out what is happening in the neighborhood. Who is performing in concert with her madrigal group? Who is having squirrel problems? Why was a neighbor taken to the hospital in an ambulance? You don’t learn these things in the newspaper or on Facebook.

2. You get to see how much the children have grown. Our little exchange had a 3.5-year-old, a toddler and two babies, including a month-old new neighbor who mostly slept through the evening. Our neighborhood is attracting young families. It’s fun to see how much their kids change over the years.

3. You get to welcome new neighbors. We were delighted that our newest neighbors joined us.

4. You see your neighbors’ latest remodeling projects, and get ideas for your own home. Most of our houses are 80 to 100-years-old. Believe me, we are all regularly updating and looking for cool ideas.

5. You can escape from reality tv to real life. Getting to know your neighbors is reality, not the latest television show.

5.5. In the words of the Cookie Monster, “Cookie!” Somebody said “A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.” We’ll be slowly savoring ours so we should have a balanced diet through Christmas. Thank you, Caitlyn, Jerrad, and Ivy!

The first Sunday of each Monday (September through June), Norwegian spirit is alive and cooking in Vancouver. That’s when the members of the Sons of Norway offer a Pannekaker Brunch at their lodge at 2400 Grant Street. They often serve 250-350 diners.

Pre-Breakfast Music

This is not just about pancakes. There may be a bit of a wait for seats at this popular breakfast but live Nordic music and fresh coffee keep the mood upbeat.

The Crowd at Sons of Norway

And Scandinavian sweaters brighten the room. This is WAY more fun than breakfast at your usual pancake house.

Downstairs in the dining room, waiters are quick to bring plates of pancakes with lingonberry jam, eggs, sausage, juice, and lots more coffee. The pancakes are all-you-can-eat. All for $6. First Sunday of the month, 9:30 a.m. – 1 p.m. Go early! Wear a Norwegian sweater.