You just can't make this stuff up. Or plan for it.
Friday:
The cabana/pagoda/Pentagon/Smurf House. Hippie hideaway.
The "shady" part of town is full of arts & craft single families filled with lush gardens. It just happens to be near the freeway and a Bear bar -- ohnoes! :P
Marionberry yogurt.
People so happy and relaxed it feels like a foreign country.
Children free to wander and play, something I have *only* witnesses in foreign countries in the last 15 years.
Freedom of speech laws and small business regulations that encourage a live and let live, do your own thing economy, where even with the 2nd highest unemployment rate in the country, no one seems worried.
Frugal is not fashion, or recession trend, or a hardship, its a comfortably embraced way of life. I approve.
Foot carts. Portland has 400 of them. Healthy, diverse, and amazing. We ate at 2, one with some of the best Thai I'd had in ages, and the other the the infamous Ziba's Pita's (which was just given a paragraph in the NYT, which I found out about after I chatted with and snacked on Ziba's Bosnian traditional snacks, discussing them vs. the Croatian version.).
Mt. Hood & Mt. St. Helen were frightening to view, unlike any other mountains I have seen (the rockies, the alps). Just surreal, almost unnaturally in focus.
Toy store shopping. "Pink mustaches for girls" buying!
The slowest but cheeriest street trams ever.
Petite downtown with giant open plazas to hang in.
Bronze Otter sculptures. (Also deer & bears.)
Powell's. I finally made it to Powell's.
Tiki bar happy hour bachelorette party. With pink mustaches for all!
Meeting up with the guys at a pub after, and entertaining the locals with our fabulous facial fur.
Taking over the pool room in the 3rd bar, with B&W photo booth shoots for lasting goofy memories.
Saturday:
Tiki wedding dress with hair by stylist for Kate Pearson of the B52s! Gorgeous!
Getting a flippy, retro-modern Farrah-fabulous 'do like I had never pictured on my own head.
Pre-wedding pasta & rose bubbly. Yum.
Maple-Bacon Donuts
Kazoo & slide whistle orchestra
Voodoo wedding ceremony with pagan broom jumping and theatrical chandelier blinking
Kenny Rogers velvet paintings (finally -- a celebrity revival I can get behind! Take that steve Perry!)
"Island in the Stream" first wedding song with Kenny & Dolly!!
followed by "Tequila"
Getting invited to have the reception at a backyard Tiki bar party full of Pirates, by the infamous Rich Makin.
Wedding Photo shoot in front of giant voodoo plant monster.
Finding a british pub with outdoor picnic seating instead, with a Klezmer Gypsy Jazz band (not gypsy-punk, but mellow gypsy-jazz. a new experience for me), and very traditional pub snacks, with a poster for an Orbital concert in Brixton (where L&P first lived together in London). Could not have planned that better.
Backyard campfires in the garden.
Sunday:
Mellow as you wanna be. Falling in to the Portland chill attitude, which is mellow but not stoner, by spending much of the day reading in the yard.
Wedding brunch
Neighborhood walks. Waffle sandwiches!
Reading in the yard, reading in the cabana, reading in the house...
Pizza-pasta joint with garlic knots and soaring ceilings.
Snarky polar bear articles.
Orange cream microbrew beer. Holy crap!!
Monday:
Spending my return day resting and finishing The Book of Eleanor, historical-fic of Eleanor of Aquitaine, which I picked up at Powell's. (Inaccurate but fascinating along the lines of The Other Boelyn Girl) Picked up Levy from her Uncle Sam's, continued cuddling & reading, while getting txt updates from RS on his post-Portland adventures.
Can't say that Portland is my kind of town, the way I once imagined it would be. (Damn hippies! ;P) The friendliness and genuineness and green everywhere were unbeatable, but until I read the polar bear article, I wasn't sure that snarky could exist here at all. But it was relaxing. An anti-NYC, in a good way. I didn't feel a personal connection or magic to the place, but then I spent more time with the magic of the people I came to see than the place itself. The people being fabulous, and perfectly suited to this place in every way. Oh yeah -- and the weather was unbeatable, a sunny 50-70 mildness the entire time. The gods have blessed this union!
Things we REALLY need to import back east:
Frugal funky wedding locales
bacon donuts (with more bacon, less donut)
Seriously laid-back live-and-let-live laws & attitudes
Children who run free and happy without leashes or anxiety-ridden parents
Powell's
more healthy portable food options
A noted lack of stress about much of anything
Orange cream microbrew beer
cheerful friendliness quotient
Kenny Rogers nostalgia
Things I like much better at home:
endless delivery cuisine options
sleek, streamlined fashion
sarcasm (what can I say? I like a sharp wit)
the dog and our own bed
my scooter
I was almost going to add public transportation, but after the txting fiasco on the T in Boston this weekend, maybe sacrificing speed for cleanliness and efficiency is preferable.
The cabana/pagoda/Pentagon/Smurf House. Hippie hideaway.
The "shady" part of town is full of arts & craft single families filled with lush gardens. It just happens to be near the freeway and a Bear bar -- ohnoes! :P
Marionberry yogurt.
People so happy and relaxed it feels like a foreign country.
Children free to wander and play, something I have *only* witnesses in foreign countries in the last 15 years.
Freedom of speech laws and small business regulations that encourage a live and let live, do your own thing economy, where even with the 2nd highest unemployment rate in the country, no one seems worried.
Frugal is not fashion, or recession trend, or a hardship, its a comfortably embraced way of life. I approve.
Foot carts. Portland has 400 of them. Healthy, diverse, and amazing. We ate at 2, one with some of the best Thai I'd had in ages, and the other the the infamous Ziba's Pita's (which was just given a paragraph in the NYT, which I found out about after I chatted with and snacked on Ziba's Bosnian traditional snacks, discussing them vs. the Croatian version.).
Mt. Hood & Mt. St. Helen were frightening to view, unlike any other mountains I have seen (the rockies, the alps). Just surreal, almost unnaturally in focus.
Toy store shopping. "Pink mustaches for girls" buying!
The slowest but cheeriest street trams ever.
Petite downtown with giant open plazas to hang in.
Bronze Otter sculptures. (Also deer & bears.)
Powell's. I finally made it to Powell's.
Tiki bar happy hour bachelorette party. With pink mustaches for all!
Meeting up with the guys at a pub after, and entertaining the locals with our fabulous facial fur.
Taking over the pool room in the 3rd bar, with B&W photo booth shoots for lasting goofy memories.
Saturday:
Tiki wedding dress with hair by stylist for Kate Pearson of the B52s! Gorgeous!
Getting a flippy, retro-modern Farrah-fabulous 'do like I had never pictured on my own head.
Pre-wedding pasta & rose bubbly. Yum.
Maple-Bacon Donuts
Kazoo & slide whistle orchestra
Voodoo wedding ceremony with pagan broom jumping and theatrical chandelier blinking
Kenny Rogers velvet paintings (finally -- a celebrity revival I can get behind! Take that steve Perry!)
"Island in the Stream" first wedding song with Kenny & Dolly!!
followed by "Tequila"
Getting invited to have the reception at a backyard Tiki bar party full of Pirates, by the infamous Rich Makin.
Wedding Photo shoot in front of giant voodoo plant monster.
Finding a british pub with outdoor picnic seating instead, with a Klezmer Gypsy Jazz band (not gypsy-punk, but mellow gypsy-jazz. a new experience for me), and very traditional pub snacks, with a poster for an Orbital concert in Brixton (where L&P first lived together in London). Could not have planned that better.
Backyard campfires in the garden.
Sunday:
Mellow as you wanna be. Falling in to the Portland chill attitude, which is mellow but not stoner, by spending much of the day reading in the yard.
Wedding brunch
Neighborhood walks. Waffle sandwiches!
Reading in the yard, reading in the cabana, reading in the house...
Pizza-pasta joint with garlic knots and soaring ceilings.
Snarky polar bear articles.
Orange cream microbrew beer. Holy crap!!
Monday:
Spending my return day resting and finishing The Book of Eleanor, historical-fic of Eleanor of Aquitaine, which I picked up at Powell's. (Inaccurate but fascinating along the lines of The Other Boelyn Girl) Picked up Levy from her Uncle Sam's, continued cuddling & reading, while getting txt updates from RS on his post-Portland adventures.
Can't say that Portland is my kind of town, the way I once imagined it would be. (Damn hippies! ;P) The friendliness and genuineness and green everywhere were unbeatable, but until I read the polar bear article, I wasn't sure that snarky could exist here at all. But it was relaxing. An anti-NYC, in a good way. I didn't feel a personal connection or magic to the place, but then I spent more time with the magic of the people I came to see than the place itself. The people being fabulous, and perfectly suited to this place in every way. Oh yeah -- and the weather was unbeatable, a sunny 50-70 mildness the entire time. The gods have blessed this union!
Things we REALLY need to import back east:
Frugal funky wedding locales
bacon donuts (with more bacon, less donut)
Seriously laid-back live-and-let-live laws & attitudes
Children who run free and happy without leashes or anxiety-ridden parents
Powell's
more healthy portable food options
A noted lack of stress about much of anything
Orange cream microbrew beer
cheerful friendliness quotient
Kenny Rogers nostalgia
Things I like much better at home:
endless delivery cuisine options
sleek, streamlined fashion
sarcasm (what can I say? I like a sharp wit)
the dog and our own bed
my scooter
I was almost going to add public transportation, but after the txting fiasco on the T in Boston this weekend, maybe sacrificing speed for cleanliness and efficiency is preferable.