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!