I’ve made it through week three and now only seven weeks to go. I’m in a rhythm now though, and I’m really enjoying myself here! Under my baby umbrella in the elusive rain, I secretly love this gloominess and the independence. Portland has a lot more to offer than tummy aches from too much good food – everything is lovely, friendly, abundant and the opportunities seem never ending.
Work this week was pretty laid back. I’ve been working on the same project which includes a lot of drawing, so I haven’t been too productive on my own illustrations because I fear wrist injury from overuse of the Wacom Tablet. Also, every day I walk past this gorgeous, overly spacious house/mansion in which I envision myself reading a book at a large mahogany breakfast table having biscuits and tea before going upstairs to my windowful studio to paint illustrations for a children’s book with my cute cavalier king charles spaniel named Lumos.
On Monday, as I briefly mentioned last week, I met a group of people for a writer’s workshop type thingy at Tao of Tea. The place is awesome, they serve you a full teapot with cute little cups. The bar area is made out of bamboo, and they serve ice cream for people like me who aren’t so fond of tea…yet. I ordered vanilla smoked tea ice cream which arrived in a nice little bowl with some fiery – not “hot” but smokey – syrup and cranberries on top. The group was great. I met four new people, one of which was a girl who graduated from OSU in multimedia design…who would have thought? Anyway, we had a great conversation, we read some people’s writing, we talked, and then I went home feeling rather happy.
Despite my resolve to not eat out at work during the week, my co-worker asked me if I wanted to join them for a trip downtown to an infamous food cart from which a heavenly Thai dish is sold. I couldn’t say no and so I ditched my free peanut butter and jelly sandwich and dished out 6 bucks for some very satisfactory, melt in your mouth, tender boiled chicken over rice with a zesty soy bean sauce made from garlic, ginger and chilies. I ate half for lunch and half for dinner. Mmm, gotta love 3 dollar meals :)
Thursday, I again failed at not spending money during the week. I met a friend at Bonfire Lounge for happy hour. The place was awesome, as was the menu, but someone decided that it was necessary to only use one dimly lit candle per table as the sole source of lighting in the place. I could barely see in front of me, but that’s okay because margaritas were only $3.50, and they were strong! I figured I better eat something if I was going to put alcohol in my tummy, so I ordered a gyro for $3.50 packed full with chicken, lettuce, tomato, feta and cool, creamy tzatziki sauce. I devoured it and my stomach thanked me for the solidity. After some good conversation, I walked home and clonked out almost immediately thanks to those salt rimmed glasses of goodness.
Friday was a night that I decided I wanted to stay in. I picked up some ingredients for chili making and a bottle of wine. Pinot Gris from an Oregon brand called A to Z. So while stirring and simmering my chili, recipe courtesy of Mrs. Roedig, I chomped down some salad and had a small glass of wine, which was quite tasty and just the perfect meal for a light Friday night spent watching Lost episodes. Around 10 pm the chili was finally finished simmering in it’s cinnamony, allspice juices so I froze half and packed the other half into the fridge with a promise to eat it instead of restaurant food.
Saturday was my big day of window shopping. I hopped on the bus and went downtown to Pioneer Square – a sort of crazy circular mall that’s divided into different sections. First I went into ATT to exchange my bluetooth, next I went to Bose where I was going to buy a headphone extension cord but ended up getting it for free since the guy said it wasn’t in their inventory (awesome right?), then I daydreamed in the Betsey Johnson store and then…I spotted the necklace of my heart’s desire at a store called Twist that showcases local artists’ crafts and beautiful jewelry. Thanks to Jeanine Payer, artist of my necklace (which I did not buy), I want to spend more money than I’ll ever be able to on this earthly, heavy pendant on which is engraved the Apache blessing.
May the sun bring you new energy by day,
May the moon softly restore you by night,
May the rain wash away your worries,
May the breeze blow new strength into your being,
May you walk gently through the world
and know its beauty all the days of your life.
It’s one of those pieces that you see and you just know you need it. Yea, I need it. Maybe only females understand this, but when something material strikes our fancy, it stays with us and carves this hole into our bodies and nestles there forever, a hibernating fox, that sometimes wakes up and claws us if we haven’t wasted our money yet. But it wouldn’t be a waste…because it’s beautiful, meaningful…ahh I’ll shut up now.
I walked around more, browsed Borders and Sanrio (soooo much Hello Kitty stuff, but not as good as the store in NY).
I was feeling the pains of fruitless window shopping, so I went to Moonstruck Cafe. A local chocolatier that I had been meaning to pay a visit to. I ordered some truffles (to eat later) and a shake of chocolate, caramel, and caramelized hazelnuts whipped and stirred into a thick, cold drink of blissful cacao. Plus they put a neat little medallion of dark chocolate on top with their logo carved into it, a man on the moon.
(truffles from left to right – Vienna Cafe from Godiva (which I ate today and found to be very tasty), Salted Caramel from Moonstruck, and Mayan Cinnamon Truffle from Moonstruck – I’ll let you know how good they are after I eat them :p )
After my dose of sweet I visited lots of other typical mall stores within the crazy circular building. When I was finished looking around it was only 12:30 and I thought I should explore more of downtown while I was there. Knowing the rumors of the famous Powell’s City of Books, I hiked my way over there and ended up being sucked into its labyrinth of brilliance for about three hours during which I carried around 10 different books trying to decide which ones to buy. This place is amazing and they claim to be the largest used and new bookstore in the world!! There are 9 different rooms on 4 floors and they are all categorized, there are rows and rows of books, everything you could ever hope to read, tags with recommendations, little sheets to educate you on Pulitzer winners, people bustling around, reading, people browsing, drinking coffee, kids running and begging for a new book to read…it was a paper heaven. I could have spent all day there but I was hungry and wanted to get home to eat chili and avoid spending more money on food. I bought 3 books (one of which was only a dollar) and went home happy as could be. I’m not gonna lie, I’ll probably be back there before the end of March, waltzing in the aroma of literature with my credit card burning in my purse, longing to be used to purchase lots of alluringly bound stories.
Later Saturday night, after loving the homey taste of Mrs. Roedig’s chili over noodles with cheese, I went out with a co-worker to see the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus featuring a total of 4 hotties. We got there early so we walked around the area and came across a cafe in which we split a raspberry cream filled crepe.
It was pretty good, not the best, and so after that we headed back down the street to the theater, chai tea in hand, to go see the movie at Cinema 21 for only 7 dollars. The theater was nice and the movie itself was crazy! Good crazy. I want to see it again because the wildness of the plot and scenery in the film were fascinating. Overall Saturday was a successful day and not to mention, it was a lot of fun hanging out with someone from work!
Sunday, today, was my day to go to Belly Timber and order the thing on the menu that I have been eyeing for a couple weeks. After walking past some wet nature in the rain, rain, rain, and somehow avoiding having soaked socks, I sat down at the restaurant and opened up Angela’s Ashes, which is captivating. I haven’t been swallowed up by a book this good in a long time.
I started reading and my very nice waiter (I say this because it’s such a huge change from NY, everyone is nice here!) came over and I ordered the bacon and banana stuffed french toast with mascarpone and house made nutella sprinkled with nuts.
Bahaha. Yea, it was yummy. I’ll let the picture tell you how yummy it was. I included two because it was so yummy. I wondered why the place was called Belly Timber, I heard that it’s the name of a tree, but in my opinion, the food makes your belly fall down into a coma.
I’m writing this kind of early on a Sunday, but the rest of the day will probably just be spent nursing my stomach from it’s life changing breakfast experience, watching Lost, drawing, and maybe working on some stuff for Kiki Magazine. Love it :)
youknow added these pithy words on 