Every Saturday, Portland’s finest farmers gather in the downtown area by Portland State University and the art museum to sell their produce and other wares. I crunched a sample carrot, tasted plant-based vegan cheese, ate a small scoop of jalapeno caramel sauce, smeared lavender peach jam on a cracker with a little goat cheese, sipped a cup of ( Read more... )

In the airport, the woman next to me gave her name, full address and credit card number into her hands-free phone device for the entire population in the waiting area to hear.

There are more season ticket holders to the Seattle Sounders than to the Mariners, and more season ticket holders to the Portland Timbers than to the Trailblazers. I heard it ( Read more... )

You like Renoirs?  Cezanne?  Then maybe you should trot over to the Barnes Foundation to see some.  ...  Or maybe not.   Alfred Barnes (Dr. Barnes to you and me) had a ton of money but no taste.  He bought lots of paintings, but then arranged them in odd groupings.

Renoir, Tintoretto, Cezanne and Giorgione hung together to show how the painters all ( Read more... )

Am staying in Delaware for a week or so.  There are Joe and Jill Biden paper dolls in the bookstore, and only one person in 48 hours has said anything about my purple hair (other than GL, who I am visiting - she says Delawareans all have good manners and would never dream of commenting on something like hair color ( Read more... )

Buy a City ticket.  It's $79 and gets you into the major tourist attractions, each of which cost $20 or $25 with extra $8 or so for audio guides that are generally included in the City ticket ( Read more... )

Today, the Empire State Building.  The folks here have clearly attended the Disney School of Queue Management!  First, you wait in line to get through security.  Then you wait in line to buy tickets.  Then you wait in line to get your picture taken (which I think is a security measure disguised as a tourist photo).  Then you wait in line for the ( Read more... )

Back on the bus into the City in the morning, then subway to Battery Park so I could take the ferry over to Ellis Island.  OMG, hot.  Like possible heat stroke hot.  At the ferry, you could skip the line to buy tickets if you had bought them on-line or had a City pass (which I did).  IMO, don't wait to buy your ticket at the dock.  Those poor ( Read more... )

I took a New Jersey Transit bus into the City this morning.  It cost $8.25 round trip, which is only $.25 more than the toll for the tunnel to get into Manhattan, let alone parking and the hassle of driving in the city.  The bus dropped me off at the Port Authority on 42nd Street, and a very helpful man told me how to get to Ground Zero by subway ( Read more... )

On the way to New York City!  How exciting!  In the car on the way to the train station, I saw a bumper sticker that said "Jesus is coming - look busy!"  The train station is under construction.  Can you believe it?  It's also crawling with police, dogs, bullet proof vests, commanders wearing dress uniforms with colorful medals.  What's up?  No one ( Read more... )

No, this does not refer to him missing a bus or showing up late for a dinner engagement, but rather the painting he did in his later years.  The Philadelphia Art Museum has a special exhibit, so S and I met there to view the paintings.

I took the train up.  GL dropped me at the station, where EEK a major rainfall resulted in the closure of the ( Read more... )