Visitors

I had a great time tonight!  Just a few weeks ago Mom & Kiki planned a trip to Portland for a quick visit with me.  I was excited to have them fly in tonight.  They took an early evening flight which allowed me to work a full day before picking them up.  I wish I could have taken the day off work, but I think we managed to do a lot of stuff tonight.  After checking into the hotel (totally cool that they upgraded us to a huge suite), we walked to Mama Mia Trattoria for a beautiful dinner.  I ordered the pizza because I was dying to try the house-made mozzarella.  Delicious!

We walked around after dinner and found ourselves at Barrel Room.  We really enjoyed the dueling pianos show.  We didn't stay long, but they played some great songs.  The crowd was really going wild during Cee Lo Green's "F*** You."  This was my second time checking out their show...  It's still not my favorite for dueling pianos, but I love that they have a guitarist and drummer to call on stage to perform more rock-y songs.  That makes it fun.

I don't remember the name of the place, but Mom got a coffee at one of the food carts with late-night hours.  I'm not a coffee drinker, but I need to go back to this place because they serve Belgian waffles.  It smelled so delicious.  :-)  Our evening ended at Henry's Tavern with a final round of drinks and a cup of soup for Kiki & Mom to split.  I have to work tomorrow so we don't get to spend the day together, but I'm looking forward to the evening...

Finished another mystery today.  Shocker, I know. This one was John Sandford's Rules of Prey the first in the Lucas Davenport series.  One thing I really appreciated about this book was Sandford's attention to police procedure.  I think those details are often overlooked in mysteries - especially in popular television programming like CSI.  I also enjoyed the characters so I wouldn't mind picking up the next book in the series to see where it takes me.

A Week In the Life

Not much going on with me this new year.  I don't have a whole lot to write about, but I do have pictures to share.  This first one is for you, Nonna.  I've taken the time to blow dry my hair and wear it down more times during the past seven months in Portland than I did during the last seven years in Irvine.  But I digress.  So in chronological order:

We actually got a break from the rain and had a few days of clear weather.  It was cold, but at least it was dry enough to walk around.  Eddie and I set out to use my last Groupon that expires this month - for AJ On The Rails.  Boy were we surprised to find it boarded up and closed indefinitely.  They have a second location that seems like just a coffee shop, so we'll have to get over there sometime next week.  After that little disappointment we found ourselves at Violetta - a burger joint that features all local ingredients.  Unfortunately the meat wasn't that amazing so the experience wasn't that wonderful for me.  But it's been on my list for some time so now we can cross that one off.

That night, Eddie and I caught up on Master Chef and finished watching the series.  I think it aired during the summer but we never watched it then.  It's probably my least favorite of all the shows Gordon Ramsay is involved with, but I'm still a sucker for these cooking competition shows.  I was so excited to see Whitney, the Pastry Princess, make it all the way.  Good for her!

Thursday was my errand day.  It began with a trip to the DMV which turned out to be a pleasurable experience.  Shocking, I know.  There's something different about Oregon DMV's, but I like it.  I think my picture is terrible though.  Ugh.

I had a bit of time to kill after becoming a licensed driver, so I had lunch at Pizzicato.  It was a bit on the pricey side, so I'll just have to make it a point to visit them during happy hour when you can get a slice and a pint for $6.  I swear you can't find quality food like this at such a reasonable price in California.  I think Kristen will enjoy this place the next time she comes up to visit.  Mom too.  And they have the large pepperoni slices like Pizza My Heart used to.

And now...  Because I know you're just dying to find out what I did after lunch...  I actually got to use a Groupon.  This one was for $60 in services at fáda that included a complimentary scalp treatment and massage.  It was nice to be pampered a bit.  I will say I felt totally out of place when I walked in.  It is so shi-shi - something I am definitely not.  But the receptionist was super friendly as she showed me to the coat rack to store my belongings.  Even though I was thirty minutes early, Scarlet and Paul were able to come out for my consultation.  A consultation?  With two people?  I was so confused.  I quickly learned that Scarlet would be in charge of my color and Paul would handle the cut.  Okay.  Now I really felt out of my league.  But I couldn't back out.

Paul sat me down in his chair and did a pre-cut before my coloring.  I explained that I wanted to donate my hair so he tied it in a quick low ponytail and made a very quick cut.  I figured he would make two or more pontytails to increase my donation, but even with the single chop, I had about fifteen inches to get rid of.  Then Scarlet led me back to her station and really took her time to get my color right.

I don't know if I'm an easy client or a difficult one because I don't give much direction.  I figure the stylist & colorist know what's best and if something horrible is ever done, my hair grows so quickly it doesn't matter.  I think Scarlet could tell the first round of color was just a little too light so she took me back to darken it up a bit.  I like to keep my hightlights very natural.  Especially since I only dish out the money to do my hair once a year it's imperative that you can't really tell when my highlights start to grow out.  Anyhoo...  Paul came back after the coloring to do my scalp treatment and awesome massage and then he did this to my hair.

The last time I chopped off my hair for a donation (April 2007) I had to go much shorter with my cut.  I just didn't have that much hair to play with.  So it's kind of nice that my hair is already nearly shoulder length and it will only be just a few years before I have enough to donate again.

The last thing I did this week was finish the airport book I purchased when I returned to Portland on Christmas.  I'll admit, I initially picked it up to check out because the cover intrigued me.  And when I saw Lee Child's name on the front I just knew I had to read the back cover.  So the idea behind this book is totally awesome.  Jeffery Deaver got all of these great mystery writers to work together to write two novellas.  Each author wrote a different chapter for the stories - including their own turn of events and characters as they saw fit.  When I realized that Lee Child and Lisa Scottoline both contributed, I was hooked.  I love both of their books and even though I didn't recognize any of the other authors, I was sure I would like this.  The first novella was fun for anyone who likes mysteries and music.  I was surprised by the amount of technical music detail in there.  And the second novella is about racing around to prevent the potential WWIII.  I'm going to give this book to Eddie when he flies to San Diego at the end of the month so he can pick up another airport book for me.

In conclusion...  I have three job interviews lined up for this week as well as a staff meeting at the winery.  Between these four things happening, I hope to finally be working full-time hours somewhere or at a combination of places.  We shall see...

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...

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.

Austin Powers

Another day of food, fun & heat.  We started our day with a drive to the state capitol building and our own self-guided walking tour.  Of course it was under construction and they had scaffolding set up around the dome but we still managed to take some neat pictures.  Next we found a parking spot at the trail entrance to Lady Bird Lake (formerly Town Lake).  It's a trail that follows the shore of the Colorado River - not the same Colorado River flowing through the Grand Canyon.  It was too hot to do much walking and I was dressed in a skirt so that nixed the idea of renting bikes, but it was still an enjoyable walk.

By this time we were hungry so we went to Home Slice Pizza which we saw near the Continental Club & Guero's.  What a great pizza joint!  It's got the college feel like Woodstock's and the freshness of Pizza My Heart.  I ordered a slice of pepperoni pizza with a Boylan grape soda.  I don't think I've ever heard of the soda company, but it was a delicious grape soda made with cane sugar.  And the pizza slice was wonderful and had a cornmeal bottom crust.  We sat at the bar and got to watch the guy toss up the dough which is always fun to see.  :-)

After a pit stop at the hotel to use the gym and shower we headed out for an awesome night on the town.  Our first stop was Antone's, a blues club founded by Clifford Antone who was a mentor to Stevie Ray Vaughan.  We went to see our second BlueBonnet's performance.  They rocked the stage again but I didn't think this performance was as good as Tuesday's.  Maybe it was the smaller, older crowd...

We watched the first two songs of the next act's set before heading out to dinner at Fado Irish Pub around the corner.  I ordered a Smithwick's to wash down my Smithwick's flavored mini burgers.  The beer was refreshing as usual but I could not pick up the flavor of the beer in the burgers at all.  A bit of a bummer, but then I really wasn't expecting much.  Before we decided on Fado for dinner, we noticed a small outdoor stage set up between two other buildings in the area.  I wanted to check it out after dinner, but unfortunately no one was playing yet so we walked back to Antone's to see what was going on in there.  I think if I had known anything about blues music I would have really appreciated what was going on in there - two female artists were doing a duet on stage and they said they hadn't worked together in years.  The audience was loving it and I really enjoyed what I heard.  But like I said...  I know nothing about blues and so I can't tell you who they were or what they were singing.

We left Antone's after that song and again walked around the block and found our way to that outdoor stage.  A great cover band was playing so we watched them from the sidewalk for a few songs.  I found out they are called Suede.  Mom and I both enjoyed them because they rocked out the classics as well as current songs.  Very cool.  Even cooler was the venue - Cedar Street Courtyard.  Check out the link to see what the venue looks like during the day.

The night was young and we wanted to see more Austin so we decided to take a pedicab tour of the immediate area.  The guy we chose to ride us around was working his first shift ever and we were his very first customers so that was kind of special.  His more experienced co-worker rode along beside us to point out some of the cool stuff around us.  They intended to take us down 6th Street where all the action is, but couldn't because the police had the road blocked off to traffic.  Apparently every Thursday thru Saturday night the street is closed down for pedestrian traffic only.  That should tell you how hip it is.  This was just a Thursday night and there were thousands of people out on the streets and in all the different bars & clubs.  It looked like a scene from an MTV spring break - sans naked people.

We got out of pedicab and headed east.  The first place we found that looked interesting was Friends Bar.  They had a live band playing - Sam Riggs Band.  They were just okay for me.  I think they played some covers (none of which I recognized) and an original song that I had no way of knowing.  We left after about three or four songs to walk around more.

We poked our heads into a couple of places to see what they were like and made our last stop at Pete's Dueling Piano Bar.  By far my favorite stop for the evening!  This dueling piano bar was very similar to others I've been to but this crowd was so much fun. The place was pretty crowded when we first arrived (thinned out a lot by 2:00 A.M. though).  There was a young guy standing next to us at the bar that was so drunk I'm still trying to figure out how he never fell down.  He was swaying so much he was actually losing his drink due to it sloshing over the sides.  He was a fun character to watch because he knew all the songs and was very into it.  My mom requested some Go-Go's music so the blind musician came up with a medley for us that you can watch here.  Too funny!  The other cool thing to happen here was when someone requested they play Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA."  They called people up to the stage who have served for our country and the rest of us in the audience stood on our feet and belted out the tune.  A very cool sight indeed!

So we called it a night when Pete's closed down and I was sad to make it my last night in Austin.  We knew there was nightlife down there but we never expected anything like 6th Street.  There is truly something for everyone in that time.  No matter what your music scene is, Austin is the place for you.