Quintessential Portland

It doesn't get any more P-town than this.  I started the day by volunteering a couple of hours putting together boxes of goodies for the up-coming bike and walk to school day.

 

Then it was off to Trader Joes to do a little shopping.  I brought my own bags of course, and loaded them up on Fezzik.  On the way home, I made a quick stop at Starbucks to pick up grounds for our new compost bin. 

While I was in the store, a woman sitting by the door said hello and asked how I was doing.  She said she'd heard about my mom a while after the fact.  I had no idea who she was.  Running into someone who knows me, but I don't remember? Check.

I couldn't chat long though, 'cause I had frozen goods to get home.  Next I loaded the Tikit into Jess's car and dropped the car off at the body shop for repairs.  I'd forgotten a key ingredient for the soup I'm making this week so I rode up to New Seasons and just threw the Tikit into a shopping basket. That got lots of stares and comments.

I stopped on the way home at Revolver Bike shop to pick up a few parts for this week's mechanic class.  They were busy working on building up a couple of new Yuba Mondo cargo bikes to sell.  The Yuba is a tank of a bike.  It can handle loads up to 400 lbs--more than I'd care to, or probably could pedal--and it's pretty affordable at sub $1000. 

I also stopped to love up a couple of adorable little kittens hanging out on the sidewalk. The smaller one seemed quite prepared to let me hold her until the cows came home, or the mysteries of the universe were revealed, whichever came first. 

 

 

 

When I got home, I picked all the ripe tomatoes, and some basil from the garden and made spaghetti sauce from scratch.  It was delicious.  While the sauce was cooking, I went and added the grounds to the compost and gave it a good stir.

We have the Jones's in our sights--all we need is a few chickens and we'll be set.  I guess nature--growing up in Portland--has truly made it's mark on me.

 

Vacation

It was in this super-dork configuration of gear that I headed out into the muck for what I didn't know then would be five hours of running around. First stop Kinkos, where of course they screwed up my order. Just like old times. Once they got it right, I said I'd go next door and come back in ten minutes to pick it up. And of course it wasn't ready when I came back. You really do have to stand there and watch to get anything done. I didn't get mad, because I remember how it is to work there and I'm just glad to have escaped.

I killed the (apparently useless) waiting time at the Mountain Shop next door, looking at snowboarding jackets. I've been making noise about going snowboarding again, despite dubious results the previous two times. I know if I could go more than once a year, I could greatly improve my learning curve.

From there it was downtown to the central library to pick up Blue Screen by Robert Parker, so I could return the copy I bought at Powells. I It was supposed to be a gift for Traci but of course she's read every Parker novel that's been out more than five minutes. Not sure how she managed that in the middle of her first term of law school but I gave up and just got her a gift card because I don't care what Liz Pulliam Weston says. I'm certainly not anti-present, but I never look a gift card in the mouth and neither does Traci. Anything that equates to her spending someone else's money is fine with her. And she proceeded to find a stack of books I never would've thought to get her so all's well that ends well.

So I read the latest novel, Now and Then, picked up Blue Screen at the library and then returned both to the store today. Powells was a MADHOUSE, which wasn't really a surprise. There was literally a guy who's only job was to stand at the end of the line holding a sign that said, "End of the fastest line in town." And I have to admit, I waited less then five minutes to get to the counter, even through the line was just shy of bursting out of the Orange room entirely.

On my way to Powells, I suddenly remembered that I was back in Cacao territory and almost did a little dance of joy on my bike. So after Powells, I headed right over and indulged in a 4 oz cinnamon drinking chocolate, an earl grey truffle and a couple of salted caramels. That place will ruin you for other chocolate. Since I discovered the truffles, my average spend there has gone from $5 to $10 dollars. It's really good I don't live close to it, but it's really bad that I seem to be down there a lot lately. Even bad weather isn't keeping me away.

Next stop was Trader Joes for some frozen mangoes. I'm newly addicted to mango smoothies in the morning. A nice change from strawberry and blueberry. And finally, back over the bridge towards home. My last planned stop was New Seasons but at the last minute I turned up Mississippi to hit up Grand Central Bakery on Fremont. I've been craving some potato bread from that shop for a while and since I was planning to make soup for dinner, it seemed a good reward for going up the big hill. The problem with that Mississippi hill is that it doesn't seem so bad, but then just when you think it's over, it goes on for another two blocks and gets steeper. The thought literally went like this: Hey, that wasn't so ba--holy crap this is steep!

But I made it and rewarded myself with potato bread, and continued on to the madhouse that was New Seasons. I didn't care though because the first thing I saw when I walked in the door was this: An olive oil smorgasborg. I used extreme self control and limited myself to seven or eight samples, including the $30 bottle from Australia. Tasty, but way out of my budget. I did however, fall prey to the grapefruit sample lady. She was giving out the fresh squeezed juice and I can honestly say, I've never tasted anything grapefruit-related that was so naturally sweet. I bought two to put through the inherited juicer lounging in the garage.

Riding home from the store, the sky was amazing...inky black, and foreboding in one direction and clear and moonlit in the other. I was very glad I'd taken to the streets under my own power for the day so I could enjoy it.





The evening was spent making a rutabaga and leek chowder that was a smashing success. This was my first year experiencing the rutabaga and I've been quite pleased. The soup was easy to make, took under an hour, was creamy, yet dairy-free, with a good flavor and was quite filling to boot. I'll post the recipe if requested.

We're between Dexter DVDs from Netflix right now, so we finished up with some Playstation snowboarding. I really need to practice my tricks, Jess stomped all over me in freestyle.

I think I'm finally getting into this vacation thing.

Food Porn & Good News

I barely got this picture in time. Trying to take pictures of LRBC food is kind of like trying to take a picture of your crack before you smoke it. I think this half of the sandwich amply represents the goodness: Applewood Smoked turkey breast w/ gruyere, lettuce, tomato, red onion, cranberry jam & avocado aioli on ciabatta.

I brought Jess here today so we could have a comforting and supportive atmosphere in which to tackle and daunting chore: our finances. We both have the same program to keep track of our spending but you still have to log in and assign your transactions to categories so you know where your money went. Neither of us have done this for the past mumble mumble months.

We're also celebrating our new employment status! Jess just got a job offer to do IV nursing at Emmanuel hospital and I got a modeling gig with Getty Images. Sure it's only one day, but they're paying me $500 smackers--roughly $100 an hour. Maybe I should reconsider this school thing and change careers...

Nah. I might have to give up treats like these:



Sweet Cream Marionberry Swirl & Roasted Brown-Sugar Banana and Sweet Cream

Progress

I ordered a shiny new Macbook Pro today. I've been pondering making the upgrade and my recent issues, plus the fact that I'm probably going to be required to run Windows for most of my programming classes decided me. The main reasons I held back in the first place were that 1) The technology was new--needed to give them time to work out the kinks. 2) The programs, specifically Adobe Creative Suite weren't created for the new OS yet. And 3) the money. Well, CS 3 is out and with my educational discount I can get the whole suite for $300 (about a $1500 savings) if I bought a new Mac--which I would also get at an educational discount. Once I have all my new toys, I hope to sell the powerbook for close to what I paid for it. It still has more than a year of Applecare so I think it's much better to sell it sooner rather than wait a year. I'm really hoping this upgrade will be my last until I'm done with school at least.

Today was another productivity day. Did some laundry, worked on some school stuff--I'm *finally* registered for classes and I stopped by campus to pick up a current change in financial status form so I can hopefully wrangle some more mula from financial aid. It's ridiculous that they're basing my aid on a full time salary when I haven't worked since September of last year.

So now I've got the general ed requirements out of the way and it's time to start focusing on hard core geek stuff. I'm questioning just where I want to focus my efforts. I really would like to be able to program *and* design web sites, but there isn't really a degree--two or four year--that offers exactly what I want. I definitely don't want to do the hard core computer science degree at PSU. I started thinking about the realities of entering a profession that's male dominated and pretty sexist and decided I'd like to avoid that particular corporate machine. Buuut, I can't go straight for a graphic design degree because I'm a lover writer not a fighter visual artist. So that lead me to check out OIT and the Application Development degree. It seems close to what I'm looking for and also feels like it will play to some of my strengths in communication, teaching and writing. Also, it's a four year bachelor's degree, which I will eventually need to transfer to according to the rules of my scholarship. Yay scholarship!

Feels good to finally have my schedule set. I'm not thrilled about having to go to Sylvania, but I'm allowed to up to half my classes online so with luck I'll only have to make the trek on Tue/Thur this term. Tomorrow I'll start tackling my sorely neglected finances.

I didn't get over to LRBC until close to 3:00 today, just in time to enjoy a perfectly sweetened ice latte and grab an outside table to wait for the flavor of the day. Temps were scorching but I considered it soaking up heat for the winter. Today's ice cream flavor was sweet corn. I love corn so I went for it and got the scoop. It was good--a little strange, since I'm pretty traditional when it comes to ice cream. But I have to admire Ali's creativity--it definitely inspires me to be more adventurous. I indulged in some writing time and made a bit of progress on the Idaho bike trip report which I *will* finish and post sometime this week (uh..or next). Evan turned me onto the Pandora website, streaming radio tailored to your taste based on the artists you enter. I put in Ray Charles and got the perfect soundtrack-to-write-by.

This weekend I'm leading my first club ride for Sorella Forte. I had a basic plan for my route but didn't know how many miles it would be. I found this nifty site that lets you create point by point routes and tells you the mileage and even estimates how many calories you'll burn, for people who count those things. I have a pretty simple, one bike ride = three servings of ice cream formula that I swear by. Here's my route.

When the heat got to be too much, I got out of the kitchen and headed home. I spent the rest of the afternoon lounging around the house and doing chores naked which is just one of the many things I love about having our own house all to ourselves.

Terra brought us fresh basil from her garden yesterday so that pretty much mandated that we have pasta with fresh pesto sauce for dinner. That Terra, she grows a nice herb.

Tomorrow, a therapeutic road ride in the morning and then off to the cafe where I hope to finally meet Abe the wonder dog.

Little Red Bike Cafe

We're headed out for one last summer trip this afternoon...but first I had to visit The Little Red Bike cafe which just opened a couple of days ago. Owners Ali and Evan have been teasing us with blog posts and food pictures for a while now so it was great to finally go in, and see that the small place was packed to brimming already with customers, mostly from around the neighborhood.

The food was every bit as good as expected and I can't think of a better way to start a bike trip.

We're off to Idaho to ride the Couer D'Alene bike rails to trail. Sixty-five miles and no cars! No camping this time so stay tuned for updates from the road.