Last Thursday

I'm not quite sure how I've managed to live in Portland for six months and only just now learn about Last Thursday on Alberta.  If I didn't follow so many PDX lovers on Twitter, I might not have found out about this wonderful event at all.  On the last Thursday of every month, a big 25-block section of NE Alberta is shut down for pedestrian traffic only - at least during the nice summer months.  I have not been able to confirm if this will continue throughout winter.  Artists & performers gather in the street to show off their talents while local business stay open late to accommodate the crowd.  Eddie and I arrived a little too early, but we made the most of it.  We happened to park near the Grilled Cheese Grill so we thought that would make for an excellent first stop.  And it was.  We decided to split a plain "kindergartner" which is your choice of bread (white) with cheddar or American cheese (American).  It was so hot and gooey.  Mmmm...

Eddie wanted to check out a restaurant at the end of the strip for dinner so we started walking that way.  It still wasn't crowded out but they shut down the street while we had been waiting on our grilled cheese.  We walked about two blocks and were sidetracked by the allure of Every Day Wine bottle shop and bar.  The bartender suggested we start with glasses from the bottle of Côtes du Rhône (French syrah) she had open.  It was very tasty.  We were just finishing up and planning to get the bill to leave when she came around with another open bottle of wine and suggested we try this unoaked cabernet sauvignon.  Eddie and I were intrigued so we had a glass of that and a glass of sherry to finish up.  I never saw a price list, but we were only charged $25 - $6 for each glass of wine and $1 for the beautiful milk chocolate square you see in the picture.

So we continued on our way toward Binks where Eddie wanted to eat dinner.  Unfortunately it was packed when we got there so we just kept walking.  We were having too much fun watching the drummers, the jugglers, the musicians, the hula hoopers, and the stilt walkers anyway.  But pretty soon we reached the end of the strip which is where we found Lolo - a cute tapas bar.  We weren't very hungry so we just ordered fresh local bread with oil and a side of fried & seasoned almonds.  They had some really yummy desserts listed on the menu so I definitely want to go back when I'm hungry and can afford dessert - churros with honey, chocolate mousse with something delicious on the side, and almond ice cream.  Some day I will get around to trying those...

So I'd have to say our first "Last Thursday" event was rather successful.  I wish I had some extra money to spare because then I'd actually pop in the art galleries and look at the work done by our local artists.  My media mention for tonight was inspired by a group of musicians I heard on the way back to the car.  They were playing an odd cover of Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street."  I didn't really care for their rendition, but it did get the song stuck in my head so there you go.

Have You Forgotten?

This media mention is coming a few weeks late because I never got around to watching this Hulu recommendation until tonight.  Forgive me for showing the incorrect image, but the selection of Tom Brokaw results on Amazon is pretty slim.  I watched Tom Brokaw Reports - 9/11: The Skies Over America.  This first aired five years after the day of the attacks and it is a great documentary that focuses on the air traffic controllers who were the first people on ground to figure out what was going on that day.  It was really interesting to see the timeline and how the controllers were able to piece together what was actually going on.  I strongly recommend watching this on Hulu (which currently has no expiration date so it should be up for quite a while).  It is especially relevant to my extended family of dispatcher and police friends.

And finally...  The title of this blog comes from the Darryl Worley song of the same name.  Please take a few minutes to read the lyrics here.  Ignore the grammatical / spelling errors and focus on the story.  I still tear up anytime I hear it...

Meeting My New Cousin #1

I had a real treat after work today.  My Aunt Mary called to say she was babysitting my little 4-month-old cousin from San Jose at her house in Silverton and that I could come over after work to meet her.  So of course I jumped on that opportunity.  Emma is a beautiful baby and she was all smiles the whole time I was there.  I was sad to have missed seeing her parents (my cousins), but it was still a really nice visit.  She was not fussy once the whole time I was there tonight.  She is just darling and I can't wait to see her again before the end of the year.  Now I just have to meet my new cousin #2 who was just born a few days ago.  :-)

I haven't finished reading The Mephisto Club yet so I have to turn to the TV to provide today's media mention.  I started watching Law & Order: Special Victim's Unit on Netflix about a year ago and I'm finally up to season 10 now.  This is definitely my favorite in the L&O franchise - unless L&O: Los Angeles exceeds my expectations.  I am so thrilled that original ADA Alexandra Cabot makes her return this season.  I was finally starting to get used to ADA Casey Novak when they yank her and replace her with ADA Kim Greylek.  Since we're not paying Comcast any extra money, we don't have the DVR service so I am unable to record and watch the brand new 12th season that premiered last week.  I guess I'll have to wait until it's available on Netflix in a year...

A fabulous night on the town...

I had an awesome evening tonight!  Lauren invited me out for her girl's night out / birthday celebration.  I had work in the morning so I met everyone at Henry's Tavern in Portland for dinner.  I know I've eaten way too many burgers this month (ugh), but I had another one for dinner tonight.  It was just okay.  Maybe next time I'll ask about the mac n cheese on the menu...  Dinner service was fairly slow, but we didn't mind because we were all having a great time.

After dinner we walked to Departure, the rooftop bar Lauren was excited to check out.  We were there a little too early for it to be happening, but in a way it was nice because we were able to enjoy the view.  We were up on the 15th floor of some hotel near Pioneer Square.  Unfortunately you can't tell we have a good view from my pictures.  Oh well.  The drinks were on the pricey side, but when you go to a trendy place like this, you're paying for the location & atmosphere.  About halfway through our first round of drinks, Lauren started laughing about how little she felt she fit in there.  And I must agree.  We are not a part of that über trendy club scene.  I was starting to feel pretty glad we were there too early for it to be crowded.

So we finished our round of drinks and sought out another bar.  We found ourselves back in NW at Couture Ultra Lounge.  This was another swanky place, but this one had great music and funnier people to watch.  And the bartender makes a mean kamikaze!  These tasted exactly like a frozen lemonade you'd find at a county fair.  It was so yummy.  :-)  And then it was time to wrap up the evening and walk back to the cars.  I'm pretty sure Lauren had a great birthday celebration because I had an awesome time.

All that being said...  I feel totally lame writing my media mention.  I was looking for a movie to watch on Netflix and saw that True Lies was available so I thought it would be fun to see the Governator in his movies.  I lost interest pretty early in when they had the drawn-out fight scene in the public restroom.  It reminded me too much of Kindergarten Cop.  But KC's bathroom fight scene is so much cooler because of the "You're not so tough without your car, are ya?" line.  One thing I would like to add:  I remember hearing that Jamie Lee Curtis is a hermaphrodite so I decided to research that.  According to Urban Legends, Snopes, and Wikipedia this is only a rumor.  So I promise to stop talking about it as if it were fact.  Not that Jamie Lee Curtis comes up often in my conversations, but we did discuss this very issue last month in San Diego.  And now I wish I had thought to research the facts before we talked about this.

Pizza & Beer

Eddie and I met up with Sandra & Bob for another fine meal.  We checked out Hot Lips Pizza in the Pearl District.  I ordered the $6 any slice + beer happy hour special.  I got the pepperoni slice and gave Eddie the smoked porter so I could drink the blueberry soda off the tap.  Eddie shared a huge pizza with Sandra & Bob.  Man can those boys eat!  I loved my huge slice of pizza on a deliciously thin crust.  So yummy.  And the blueberry soda was a great treat to go with it.  I'm excited to return to Hot Lips and try their other local fruit flavored sodas.  Eddie was the only one who actually had beer with dinner.  The rest of us held out for a round at Deschutes just a few blocks away.  Sandra fell in love with their Black Butte Porter on this trip - she ranks it right up there with Guinness - her all-time favorite.

Eddie and I walked to Hot Lips from our new apartment to check it out and see how long it would take.  It was about a 35-minute walk for us.  Not too bad, but I know we won't want to do that when it's raining.  Since we live in the free-rail zone for the Portland Streetcar, we decided to use that to get home tonight.  It only took fifteen minutes so that will definitely be convenient for us.  I was happy to get home that much faster to have more time to read my book.  This is another book I got at Costco but this one cost $4.89 - 40 cents more than the last book.  It's turning out to be quite the page-turner for me.  I'll have to talk more about it when I finish it...

Pok Pok

Eddie and I made plans to have dinner with Sandra & Bob tonight.  They are up visiting from Huntington Beach and exploring the Portland area all week.  Sandra did a lot of food research for the area and suggested going to Pok Pok for Southeast Asian cuisine.  I was boring and just noshed on the sticky rice ($2) while the rest of my party shared sweet corn, pork ribs, fish noodles, and other interesting dishes.  We even splurged on dessert after dinner.  Sandra had the ice cream sandwich - coconut ice cream with jackfruit topped with chocolate & peanuts sitting on a sweet bun.  Not my thing.  Eddie and I shared the whiskey soda float - housemade bourbon ice cream with cola.  That was pretty tasty.

Eddie and I got the keys and signed the lease for our new apartment so we're spending the night there.  Since today was busy with the lease paperwork, dinner, and moving in I did not have time to watch or read anything so today's media mention is something Eddie and I did yesterday.  We watched the season finale of Top Chef.  I must say that this was my least favorite season of the show.  I never did really connect with any of the contestants and I didn't have any favorite going into the finale.  I guess Eddie and I were kind of rooting for Angelo since he brought some attention to Sokol Blosser for winning a quickfire challenge with their Evolution wine.

Hop To It

I wanted to take Eddie somewhere fun after work tonight.  I started following a certain restaurant's twitter feed and learned they had just tapped two kegs of our beloved Russian River brews from Santa Rosa, CA. And on top of that, as if we needed another reason to go, I learned this place has happy hour from 3pm to close on Sundays.  So of course we had to check it out.  It's The Hop & Vine in North Portland.  We started out with a round of the two Russian River brews - the consecration & temptation and an order of bread & flavored butter.  Then we had a second round of beer (the first round were small six-ounce pours) and dinner.  I ordered the happy hour burger (pretty darn good) and Eddie had the red bean & rice risotto.  I was worried they wouldn't let me order my plain burger because the menu clearly said no substitutions on happy hour items, but the server was very friendly and didn't mind my food oddities.  And then we splurged on a third round of drinks.  Eddie had a third small glass of beer and I had some yummy cream sherry.  And all of that came to just $42!  I love living up here.  There is no way you could order six drinks and two entrees in California for just $42.  Okay, maybe you could at Dave & Busters during happy hour, but you'd be sacrificing quality.  Big time.

On another note...  I finally watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  Maybe I was too tired, but I really didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would.  I loved the costuming and makeup.  And I even enjoyed the characters.  I think it was just too slow of a film - clocking in at almost three hours.  I guess I just don't have the attention span to sit still that long.

Okay...  I need to mention something else about The Hop & Vine: best bacon ever!!!  It was thick cut & peppered, but I swear I've never had this brand of bacon.  Or maybe they cooked it a special way.  But it was amazing!

Wine After Work

I was asked to work at Solena's tasting room in Carlton today.  Normally I work at the beautiful new winery facility in Yamhill so this was going to be my first solo shift in Carlton.  I finished closing up the shop around 5:15 and figured I had time to stop at one of the local wineries that stays open until 6pm.  I walked a block north from Solena and found myself at Terra Vina's tasting room.  I almost left without trying the wines because they had a huge group crowding their tasting room, but the employee behind the bar was very friendly and eager to serve me.  I tried most of their $5 flight and really enjoyed two wines in particular: the half stainless steel / half oaked chardonnay and their Dundee Hills pinot.  I bought a bottle of each and I got hooked up with an industry discount.  I'll definitely have to go back the next time I work at our Carlton tasting room and hopefully it won't be so crowded during my next visit so I can sip and read in peace.

And what was I reading, you wonder?  I realized I hadn't read any true crime novels by Ann Rule in some time, so I decided to bust out this book - Mortal Danger.  I bought it almost a year ago from Costco for just $4.49.  I've read some of her other crime files compilations but I've never found those stories to be good as her feature novels - hence why this book had been sitting on my shelf for a year.  Much to my delight, the first story was about 200 pages so it had a similar flow as her other novels.  The rest of the stories in this book aren't nearly as long and so they're not as enjoyable for me.  I don't feel like 50 pages is enough space to properly tell a story about the victims' lives.  The first story was really intriguing because it was about a couple from San Diego who relocated to Oregon.  Sound like anyone else you know?  Me and Eddie?...

Whisper Words of Wisdom

I had a much-needed ladies' night tonight.  I met up with Lauren, Eddie's fabulous co-worker.  Since we both describe ourselves as being less-than-rich, we decided to keep things simple and inexpensive.  I met Lauren at her really cute apartment where we just spent a few hours chilling on her huge patio watching the sunset.  We had a great time sipping on wine and chatting about our lives.  It was an evening I have needed for some time now.  Very nice.

But I didn't take any pictures for the blog so that's about all I have to say on the subject.  As you can probably guess, I'm just going to dive right into my media mention and talk about another summer TV series.  This one has been my guilty pleasure: America's Got Talent.  I had never watched this show before, but one of the previews during the audition period really caught my eye.  I caught a glimpse of Fighting Gravity and knew I just had to see more.  I fell in love with them at their audition - in addition to Prince Poppycock and Jeremy Van Schounhoven (or however his name is spelled).  Those were my top three acts all season and all three did remarkably well.  I'm still quite shocked that Michael Grimm wound up winning, but I am confident that the lovable Prince Poppycock and Fighting Gravity have great careers ahead of them.

Grüner

Hooray for another successful date night... I mean date day.  Eddie and I started out with a trip to the gym and then two quick errands for me and finally a trip to our *hopefully* future apartment.  We applied for an apartment in Portland last week but they asked us to come in today to provide proof of income.  Then Eddie drove us to a surprise lunch location for our date.  I was very pleasantly surprised when he led me to Grüner, our fancy local German restaurant.  We started out with a round of specialty drinks.  Eddie ordered a glass of the Meßmer dry riesling that was on today's special and I ordered a yummy basil-infused gin cocktail.  Neither of us can remember the name of the drink at the moment and the restaurant's website is down so I can't check on this.  But it was a beautifully made drink.  I'm not a huge basil fan by any means, but this had just the right amount of flavor to accompany the gin.

And lunch was fabulous.  I ordered the burger that is only offered during their lunch hour.  It was so pretty and one of the best burgers I have had in Portland.  Right up there with Deschutes and Ten 01.  Eddie ate my "smashed" potatoes because I only cared for the crispy edges.  Eddie says the house-made ketchup was also very good.  Since I ordered the only American dish on the menu, it was up to Eddie to place the traditional order.  At my suggestion he gave the Spätzel a try.  Also delicious - according to him.

Oh.  Funny story about a customer who approached the bar where Eddie and I were sitting.  She waltzes up and asks if they have tequila.  I started to snicker because we're in a German fine-dining restaurant; not in a cantina.  But the bartender responded that they have one tequila - Sauza blanco.  So the lady orders a shot and asks for a Bud Light to go with it.  The bartender shakes her head and says they don't have BL.  So they lady says, "Okay.  I'll take a Miller Lite."  So now the bartender has to explain that they don't have any light beers so she hands the customer a beer list for her to peruse.  The customer glances at it and immediately asks for the Heater Allen.  They're a local microbrewery who specializes in German lagers.  But now it's the bartender's turn to laugh because that is the only beer they have on tap that happens to be out.

We had an hour left on our parking meter when we left the restaurant so we spent the time walking around SW.  I dragged Eddie into Gap so I could use the $50 Groupon I purchased a few weeks ago.  I was able to purchase four new tops to wear to work for just $58 - thanks to three of the four shirts being on sale.  I bought three of these button-detailed shirts for $12 each but I paid full price for this one.  I think I'm a pretty good shopper.

And now we're back at the house just relaxing while it continues to rain lightly off and on.  We're probably just going to play Dominoes tonight and maybe I'll be able to convince Eddie to watch a movie.  I'm in the middle of watching the season finale of The Good Guys, one of my other summer TV series.  I've enjoyed watching detectives Bailey & Stark get into stupid situations but somehow always manage to find their way out and make the big bust.  It's quirky like Get Smart.  I laughed pretty hard during the taser scene in this finale.  I kind of doubt this show will get picked up for a second season, but I've enjoyed it.

The Two Minute Rule

Eddie and I were supposed to have date night tonight, but I canceled because I hadn't felt well all day.  And I figured we'd be better off waiting for tomorrow when both of us have the day off work.  I know it's been a few days since I've had anything fun to blog about, but I just haven't gotten out and about to have anything worthy to say.  I promise that will change tomorrow.  So for now I can at least entertain you with my next media mention.  I finished reading Robert Crais' The Two Minute Rule tonight.  One of the ladies in my Orange County book club recommended this author to me over a year ago so I started reading the books in his Elvis Cole series.  They are just fun mysteries to read.  The Two Minute Rule is the first novel by Crais I've read that doesn't star Elvis Cole or Joe Pike.  I don't think he developed the characters very well in this book, unfortunately.  I was rooting for Holman and his son the whole time, but I could never get into Pollard or really "believe" her romantic interest in Holman.  One thing I did enjoy about the book was reading about bank robberies since most of the mysteries I read deal with kidnappers and murderers so that was a fun change of pace.  And I'm thrilled to report that I bought this book used from Powell's at a very cheap price.  :-)  And if Eddie takes me downtown for our date tomorrow, I'll get to sell it back to Powell's and buy something "new."

Get Your Hot Dogs

Today was a successful "Sunday."  Eddie and I were on a mission to scope out apartments in SW Portland today.  We mapped out several that we were interested in from our online research so we parked our car in lower SW and walked around the area for a few hours.  We toured several communities before we had a chance to break for lunch by PSU.  We decided to check out SuperDog on SW Park.  Eddie ordered one of the fancy dogs and I had a plain beef dog on a white bun.  The dog was cooked superbly - plump, hot, and juicy - and the bun was incredible.  I'm still not sure exactly what kind of bread or roll it was, but it was perfectly chewy and was hand-cut when I placed my order.  And everything in the shop was affordable - even the beer.  Just $3.75 for specialty microbrews.

Fueled with a good lunch, we set out for the second half of our search.  It started raining so we decided to head in and call it a day.  But I insisted on visiting one last community - RiverPlace Square.  I am so glad we went there because it was definitely the best apartment we've found.  Very cheap price for the location and one of the better floorplans we've seen.  We even filled out applications and put a hold on the unit so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

The rest of our night was pretty lazy - except for the thirty minutes we spent at the gym.  We watched an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay where he actually wins!  According to Wikipedia, he only has 31 wins to his 65 losses.  And let's not forget the one tie.  Apparently people like his lasagna.  But the other episode we watched tonight was the eggplant parmesan throwdown that he lost.  Probably because he insisted on adding peppers to make the marinara sauce spicy.  Eddie and I think we could make a good drinking game out of watching any Bobby Flay show - just take a drink anytime he mentions using any pepper as an ingredient.  Just watch - your drinks will add up fast...  Especially if you add a two-drink rule for any mention of poblanos or ancho chiles.  :-)

Rooftop Bar

I was excited but bummed to have to work today.  Excited because I can certainly use the extra hours & money, but bummed because I had been looking forward to spending time with Eddie on his day off.  Since Eddie didn't have much planned for the day, I invited him to check out my beautiful Solena Estate winery.  Even though he's tried all of our wines since I bring them home after every shift, I worked him through our tasting flight.  Eddie brought his Thai food cart lunch with him so I got him set up on the patio with some pinot gris to get started.  By the time he finished the tasting it was time for me to close shop and head home.  We decided to hang out in the area and get some drinks at a local restaurant.

Our plan was to go to Zippy's pizza parlor in Yamhill - about three miles from my winery.  But Eddie was in desperate need of a gas station so when he realized Yamhill has no gas stations he decided to drive on through to McMinnville.  We wound up meeting at McMenamins Hotel Oregon Rooftop Bar.  Eddie was already part way through his Manhattan so following his lead, I ordered a cocktail instead of beer.  I chose the Penney's gin fizz made with McMenamins' own Edgefield Distillery Penney's Gin.  Fairly tasty but there was too much lime juice for my liking.  Unlike Eddie, I was actually hungry.  I missed the cut off for happy hour by about two minutes so I had to order a pizza at full-price.  Not a big deal since it only cost about $6 for a pretty decent 8-inch pepperoni pizza.  Though neither food nor drinks were spectacular, I can say that one thing about this place was fabulous: the view.  The Rooftop Bar is - as you can imagine - on the rooftop.  It has an amazing view of the surrounding wine country.  It was just unfortunate that it happened to be raining (the day after Labor Day truly is the first day of fall up here).  We'll definitely need to return in better weather to enjoy the place at sunset.

I feel like I've been slacking with my media mentions lately.  Part of the problem is that I haven't started reading a new book since I finished Dexter.  The other part of the problem is that most of my summer TV series have already ended and have been reviewed.  But the real problem has been that instead of reading or watching TV during my down-time, I have been focused on apartment hunting.  Eddie and I are looking to move to SW Portland when our lease ends next month.  And I get a little crazy when it's time to apartment hunt...  Anyhoo...  For the media mention.  How about music for today?  This is a unique music mention because it is a theme song for an ice cream truck.  The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck.  Seriously.  It's a gourmet soft-serve ice cream truck operating out of New York City by my mom's long-time friend.  And the theme song comes courtesy of spunky Go-Go's guitarist & songwriter, Jane Wiedlin.  I downloaded the song from iTunes a week ago and I understand it is now available on Amazon.  It's cheesy & super catchy.  Enjoy!

Salvador Molly's

Work was super busy today but it's been fun handling the rush from the holiday weekend.  I'm hoping it's still busy tomorrow because it's not as much fun being at work when it's slow.  Bree picked me up after work and we met Eddie at the house to decide on our dinner plans.  We finally settled on Salvador Molly's which we had heard about from Man Vs. Food.  We started with a round of yummy cocktails and some appetizers.  I was able to convince the bartender to let me order the mac n cheese from the kid's menu.  It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad.  I personally prefer Kraft's blue box special to the plate I had tonight.  But is it really fair to judge a restaurant based on one of their kid's meals?  Besides, when I make the blue box special at home, it's not garnished with a cute umbrella.  :-)

Bree had a few things she wanted to see in Portland so we drove around to find them after dinner.  Most of the fun stuff was by the Tom McCall Waterfront Park.  We saw the world's smallest park, the lights on the Morrison Bridge, and the neon rose.  We also snapped a few fun photos in front of one of the fountains.  We spent the rest of the night driving around Portland in search of the fun Portland sign at the Arlene Schnitzer Hall.  Of course when we found it, the lights were off.  But we still had a good time driving around.

Then we finished the evening at home watching TV.  Thanks to Netflix we were able to watch Adam Richman's Man Vs. Food episode in Portland (season 1).  It was fun to watch him visit Voodoo Doughnuts and Salvador Molly's - two establishments we have visited in the past 24 hours.  Now after having eaten at the restaurant and watching this episode, Eddie is convinced he could pass the eating challenge at Salvador Molly's.

Wine & Bree

Not brie the cheese, but Bree, our lovely friend from San Diego.  But first about the wine!  I didn't have any fun plans to occupy my time while Eddie was at work today so I was thrilled when my cousin, Chris, invited me to join him for a little wine tasting expedition today.  We met up in the afternoon and headed to Quailhurst in Sherwood.  Chris had seen the owner advertising for the event in the morning and heard they had horses on site so he thought it would be fun to do.  We were both impressed with the beautiful grounds and all the horses & stables on site.  Though we were a little taken aback at the steep $20 tasting fee, we decided to go for it.  They had about 15 wines they were pouring - two roses, three port-style pinot noirs, one future pinot, and 8 or 9 pinots.  The $20 fee didn't seem so bad once we realized that (not that we actually had the time to sit there and try all those, but we put a good dent in the list).  They also had a beautiful snack spread that included about a dozen different block cheeses to try.  And homemade brownies.  Mmmm...  My little cousins had fun petting the horses and playing with the croquet course they had set up on one of the fields.  It's too bad Quailhurst is only open to the public for major holiday weekends like this one.

I got home just a few minutes before Eddie and we had about two hours to chill at the apartment before heading to the train station to pick up Bree.  We had to make an emergency trip to Powell's so Bree could replace her book that was stolen earlier today while she was in Washington.  Then we headed over to the infamous Voodoo Doughnut.  We all agreed the line was way too long so we took a quick drive to NE Portland to the Voodoo Doughnut Too location.  Another long line was awaiting us but at least this one appeared to be moving.  Armed with five doughnuts and two cartons of milk, we piled into a tiny photo booth and took a strip of four pictures.  I'll have to borrow it from Bree to scan and share with you.    I was worried that my Loop doughnut (yeast doughnut with vanilla frosting and Froot Loops) would tear up the roof of my mouth.  Somehow I managed to avoid that nasty scenario and found myself really enjoying my colorful treat.

Today's media mention will be a bit of a shout-out to Eddie's Sokol Blosser winery.  We have been following the newest season of Top Chef all summer and were thrilled to see Sokol Blosser's wine featured as part of this week's quickfire challenge.  Angelo made the winning dish which he paired with SB's evolution wine.  This season is winding down and we're about to head into the finale.  Normally at this point in the season I would have one or two favorites that I'd love to see take it home.  Unfortunately I feel this season has been a bit of a dud.  I can't even name the remaining contestants and I don't have any clear favorite.  I guess Tiffany would have been at the top of my board, but she was sent home this week so now I really don't know who I want to win.  Last season was so much more fun with the Voltaggio brothers.

Twilight Pizza

Eddie and I turned lunch into today's adventure.  We drove out to Camas, WA to check out Twilight Pizza & Bistro because I have been curious to try them ever since I started following them on Twitter.  Their menu looked good for a pizza parlor and we were pleased to see their decent (yet slightly over-priced) selection of good beers.  We shared the cheese bread appetizer, Eddie ordered a lunch portion pasta, and I ordered a slice of pizza.  They let you custom order your pizza-by-the-slice which I found interesting.  I haven't seen that at other pizza parlors - normally you can only choose a pre-made slice of cheese, pepperoni, or some veggie option.  Twilight does things differently.  $3.00 gets you a base slice of pizza with pizza sauce and cheese and then you choose up to four toppings which vary in price from $0.50 to $1.00.  I ordered a pepperoni and olive slice for $4.75.  I thought that was a reasonable price for the size of my slice.  I wound up taking half of it home since I couldn't eat all that food.

After lunch we walked around 4th Street / the historic downtown district, but didn't find anything fun to do.  Eddie had seen the Chamber of Commerce near where we parked so we checked with them to see if they had information on English Estate Winery.  Eddie had seen a sign for them off the freeway so the lady at the CoC gave us their phone number and driving directions.  It's a good thing we called first because they are only open on the weekends.  Cancel that plan.

We were nearly all the way home when I suggested going apartment hunting.  Eddie and I have been talking about moving to Portland when our lease ends in October because we think it would be fun to live in the city and be exposed to more nightlife and fun things.  We had been checking out one tower apartment building online and since we were driving near there anyway we decided to check it out.  It's a pretty apartment but much smaller than what we're used to.  And there's almost no counter space in the kitchen and it doesn't even have a pantry.  Those things aren't critical for me to have, but we do have a lot of stuff currently in our kitchen and I think it would be hard to downsize.  But this might be the only place we can afford in that neighborhood so we'll see what happens.

I apologize for not having any pictures today but I forgot to take my camera with us when we ran out the door so my picture for the media mention will just have to suffice.  I started reading the Dexter series last year.  I had never seen the show because we haven't had Showtime but I had seen previews and knew it sounded interesting to me.  Plus I like Michael C. Hall from Six Feet Under.  Anyhoo...  I found the books by accident one time at Barnes & Noble last year and fell in love with our dark hero, Dexter.  These books are part of the reason I joined Netflix - because I realized I could start renting the show.  I have only seen the first two seasons because that's all Netflix has made available for online streaming but I look forward to continuing with the series very soon.  Back to the book...  I'm finding this third book not quite as enjoyable as the first two but I'm still curious to turn the pages and find out where Dexter's dark passenger has disappeared to.  I need to get caught up because the fifth and newest installment in the book series is set to be released in a few days.