The Rest of the Story

So when last we spoke I was in Portland. I have been meaning to finish up the Portland Chronicles and somehow two weeks have gone by.  Some day I'll figure out how to slow time down, but for now I'll just back up again and fill in the missing Portland blanks.  I know you've been dying to know.

Saturday morning we were up and moving.  We met up with a college friend whom we haven't seen in way too long.  Teacher Lori is who we'll call her. Teacher Lori and I were pretty good friends in college. There are many a drinking stories that I could share with you, and some day I may.  Seeing Teacher Lori and a couple other college friends forced me to take a left down memory lane.  I pulled up a bunch of college photos that had me laughing and thinking I need to write a blog about those memories.

Someday.

Anyhow, Teacher Lori met us at the famous Voodoo Donuts. We knew we'd have a wait since just about everyone I've known who's gone to Voodoo said to plan on standing in line for about 30 minutes.  True to the warnings we stood in line.

Voodoo is famous for being a doughnut place full of crazy doughnut options. Some of their crazy flavors are "The Loop" (Raised yeast doughnut with vanilla frosting and Fruit Loops), Memphis Mafia ( Fried dough with banana chunks and cinnamon covered in a glaze with chocolate frosting, peanut butter, peanuts and chocolate chips on top!) ... and my favorite Cock-N-Balls ( Cock-n-balls shaped raised yeast doughnut triple filled with Bavarian cream and topped with chocolate frosting!) I kid you not.

None of those did we try.  We stayed relatively vanilla by sticking to their famous maple bar with bacon, Just like it sounds...a maple bar with bacon on top. So yummy. Though we did pull the bacon off and just eat the maple bar eventually. Teacher Lori finished off the bacon for us.

Teacher Lori and Blueberry had the Portland Cream (Raised yeast doughnut filled with Bavarian cream. Topped with chocolate and two eyeballs, representing the vision of our great city). Teacher Lori said she wanted something chocolate and cream filled and this is what she got.  I'm not a fan of doughnuts filled with cream or jelly. 

I tried the Triple chocolate penetration (Chocolate cake doughnut with chocolate frosting and coco-puffs). Yes, you read that right. CocoPuffs!!! It was so darn good. And rich, and surely low fat.

After we ate our weight in doughnuts we ventured to the Portland Saturday Market.  It was aisle after aisle of really fun stuff.  We found there just about everything you'd expect to find at a Saturday market.  I ended up buying the Pookster a "catnip body pillow". Turns out he loves it.

Finishing up there we wandered through the streets of Portland and ultimately ended up at Mother's Bistro for lunch.  Mother's was recommended to me by a couple of Portland types who love the city and had been at this place.  We waited about 20 minutes for a table (BTW the theme of the day was waiting for long periods of time for our food). Once seated we ordered and managed to get caught up in what's been going on in all our lives.  It was great to see Teacher Lori and feel like we picked up right where we left off all those years ago.

 

Leaving Mother's we decided we needed to go see Multnoma Falls.  I had been out to the falls almost a decade before and really wanted to see them again. It was raining hard and once there the rain didn't let up. We spent a couple minutes shooting photos of the falls, got ourselves in the gift shop and got us some coffee for the road back.

 

Later that night I had arranged to meet up with two other college friends I hadn't seen for some time. We were meeting them at the Deschutes Brewery for some good beer and what was supposed to be good food.  We got there a bit early and put our names on the list. The wait was about 45 minutes. While we waited Teacher Lori and Blueberry had a glass of wine and we ordered THE BEST homemade pretzel I've ever had.  It had some alfredo type cheese dipping sauce with it...OMG I could have eaten a dozen of these large pretzels.

Our other friends got there, we'll call them Mr. & Mrs. R for the sake to protect the not so innocent.  Neither of them had changed one bit since college.  We jumped right back into the same old jokes, same old slams, and remembering some of the best times we all had in college. They got us updated on a couple other college friends they kept in contact with. They passed around photos of their kids and we ooo'd and aaah'd appropriately. At one point, admittedly though, I was ready to pull out my phone and pass photos of my furry kid.  But I refrained.

I had a beer flight and Mr. R helped me finish some of the beers in this flight. They were mostly good, but there were a couple I wasn't fond of. Turns out I'm not a fan of IPA. Mr. R. however was.  He also "helped" me taste some of the other "flavors. 

By the end of the night we had laughed ourselves senseless.  I sure wish I could see these folks more often. I might have to find a way.  Their lives are certainly busier than mine - what with the kids and all.

 

 

The hotel Blueberry and I stayed in was fantastic. It felt very European. The Hotel deLuxe was downtown without being downtown. It was quaint and our room was quite small. We had a king bed in the room and about a foot around it to walk. The hotel staff was outstanding in their service and that in and of itself is a reason to stay there.

Sunday we got up whenever we wanted. We had plans to meet my sister at another Triple D place, Byways Cafe.  Their claim to fame for me were the biscuits and gravy.  As we stood inside waiting for the sister to show up there was this little tiny waif of a woman eating a platter of these biscuits and gravy. This little thing was maybe 120 lbs fully clothed and soaking wet.  She ate the entire plate.

By the time the sister got there and we were seated, there wasn't any doubt what I'd order.  The biscuits were about 3" tall, so when cut in half the halves were about an inch and half. Tall biscuits.  There were two biscuits cut in half and they were smothered in a rich delicious sausage gravy. 

I only ate about one half and a couple bites of another before I was done.  Blueberry was giving me crap saying that other little waif of a girl ate the entire plate.  I had to point out it was probably the only thing she ate all week.

 

We left the Byways Cafe and headed home.  It was a great weekend and I'm definitely wanting to go back to Portland soon. There were still some things I wanted to do and didn't get a chance to. Blueberry said she had a fantastic birthday weekend and was thrilled to spend it in Portland.  

False Start

I could fill a small book on Blueberry stories.  She's a funny girl and considering how long we've been BFFs I think she could probably tell just as many stories about me.

In preparation for coming to Portland I sent Blueberry an email to set up when we're leaving.  Now, let me set the stage. 

I live in Redmond.

She lives about 20 miles north of me.

We're heading south to Portland. 

Got that!

So I sent Blueberry an email and said, "Let's leave from my house at 9am."

What does that say to you?  That SHE should meet at my house.

So by 9:20am I called her to find out where she was. She's late at times, but never that late.  She answered her phone and I  said, "Is everything ok?"

Her response, "Yah, why?"

"Are you on your way," I said.

Her response, "No I thought you were going to pick me up."

I was a bit speechless. I mean how does that make sense? Head north to head south? She admitted she totally misread my email.

After getting a good laugh over that, we finally got on the road at 10ish.

Our first stop was to Pine State Biscuits for lunch.

Can I just say? OH....MY....God!!!

Yah take a look at that. Go ahead. Drool. I'll wait. 

I know right? Its a piece of deep fried chicken in a biscuit with homemade ranch dressing. MMM. I'm so going back.  If I lived anywhere near this restaurant I'd weigh 5 thousand pounds.

We're staying in Hotel Deluxe in downtown. It's a nice, historic building. Very European feeling.  Our room is tiny and the bathroom is tiny. Its super  nice though and downtown. 

After taking a quick rest, we headed out to Powell's book store. In case you don't know, it's a bookstore that takes up a city block.  We walked in and were hit by the smell of old books.  We spent an hour or so in there and Blueberry left with a bag full of books. She's reading as I type in fact.

Then we found ourselves in need of coffee. And by "we" I mean "me".

Stumptown Coffee I guess is famous here in Portland. We found one and ordered ourselves some warm goodness.  And goodness it was.

Portlandia

Hidee Hoe Neighbor! Its me checking in after probably the fastest week in all of history. I woke up on Monday morning with a bunch of plans and now Thursday evening and I'm scrambling to get stuff done it seems.  I'm talking about work of course. My real life doesn't appear to be nearly as organized.

Tomorrow Blueberry and I take off to Portland for the weekend. You may recall that last year I took Blueberry to Vancouver BC for her birthday.  This year we (read I) decided we should head south. It started with another GroupOn deal and is ending up with me getting a refund for my GroupOn deal and having to book another hotel.  (Side Note: GroupOn customer service really is quite good. When I contacted them about not being able to book the hotel they tried to book the rooms for me. Then they couldn't so refunded me my $$.)

I've been planning this trip for about 2 months now.  I've been to Portland a number of times but never as an actual tourist.  The Sister lives in that area as do many friends from college.  It seems whenever I go there it's to visit one of them.  This time though, Blueberry and I are tourists.  Maybe I'll make us use a fake accent or something.

I've got a LIST of restaurants I want to try.  I'm now addicted to trying the restaurants from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.  With the app Flavortown on my iPhone I can find a decent restaurant anywhere.  My plan?  These are the places I need to try.

Pine State Biscuits
Voodoo Donuts (not a Triple D place but very popular in Portland)
Byways Cafe
Food Carts
Deschutes Brewery

and now I guess I have to try Mother's Bistro.  And it seems I'm going to have to eat 5 meals a day to get in all these restaurants. Challenge Accepted!

Our plan, like anytime I travel, was to take the Hop-on and Hop-off bus tour. But being the Pacific Northwest this type of tour doesn't start until the weather is more decent...apparently. Their bus tours don't start until May.  So we'll be checking out Portland on our own two feet. Should be interesting.

Crockett's Public House

While in San Diego this last November I became a junky for finding Diners, Drive-In's and Dives restaurants.  I love the idea that someone I pseudo respect (I mean let's fact it Guy Fieri can get a bit annoying at times - but I totally, usually, agree with his assessments of good food.) has already done the research for me with respect to local food.

In San Diego, we tried three, er four...
Blue Water Seafood (my favorite)
Hob Nob Hill
Pizzeria Luigi
Ramona Café
Crazee Burger (by accident)

Okay so more than 4. I highly recommend all of them. My least favorite was probably Hob Nob but it was still good.

In my own backyard, aka the Seattle area, there are a handful. None of them have I tried. So the Pantry Goat and I set out on Sunday to try one down south in Puyallup (Pew-wow-lup).

Crockett's Public House was just on Triple D - it may have been a rerun I don't recall. They highlighted these amazing looking meatballs - I knew I had to go.  Turns out, they have a TON of other options and the meatballs was not what I choose.

Puyallup is about an hour drive from my place, so we stopped at Starbucks and we headed out in the torrential down pour of Sunday's weather.

Daisy came along for the ride as well. She's still practicing her art of Menu Modeling, but I think she's getting the hang of it.

The place was a nice open space that smelled delicious the moment we walked in. It was noon on a Sunday so I half expected us to wait for an hour or more. We waited for about 5 minutes...maybe.

Once we sat down and they handed us the menu, I was a bit overwhelmed. Everything sounded so good. The other thing that made me want to come down here was their Fire-grilled artichokes.  See I'm no fan of the artichoke.  I like it in things, especially a bubbly cheesy dip, but won't sit and just eat one. They're weird to me. BUT, they grill them here and serve them with their homemade aioli.  Watching how they prepared this on the show made me want to try them.

Once here, though, I knew I couldn't even consider ordering it and wasting precious stomach space on an artichoke.  Next time. I mean their menu...go take a look. I'll wait.

See! Don't you want to eat one of everything?

The Pantry Goat ordered Mom's Sloppy Joe (The recipe is here.)and I ordered the Memphis BBQ Burger (sans jalapenos).  Can I just take a moment...deep breath in...deep breath out...the burger was so darn good.  And the BBQ sauce, my word. It was tangy and sweet all at the same time. Sooo good. 

Next time I'll try the meatballs for sure. The people sitting next to us both had an order and neither one of them finished their plates. They did lean over and ask the Pantry Goat what se ordered though. I love that about these types of places.

We devoured our meals. The Pantry Goat left a little for herself to take home for left overs, and she took what was left of my fries.

Burp!

I swore I was never going to eat again.

Bottom line, this place was well worth the drive in the pouring rain.  I'd go again in a heart beat.  Who's up for it?

All the recipes that were on Triple D can be found here.

The heart is a bloom…shoots up through a stormy ground

If we’re lucky we get to have people in our daily lives that make a significant impact on us.  If we’re lucky, we also get a chance to have a significant impact on the world. If you make it your goal, your plan, your life, you can impact people in ways you probably can’t even fathom. And you may not ever know or understand how you’ve impacted them.

 

Bridget Spence is on such person.  Her short life impacted so many men and women that I’m certain she couldn’t have understood just how much. She’s gone now. Taken by a demon that has spent too long taking good, beautiful people.  

 

I “met” Bridget through the 3Day family. Her story was one that was shared to help inspire people and to help all of us understand that breast cancer doesn’t just take the old, it sneaks in and takes too many young ones too.  She was diagnosed just after college and has fought a brave, strong, courageous fight for 8 years.  I could not even image what living through a cancer diagnosis would be like, I’ve “lived” it from the outside looking in and that is no picnic. But to hear those words that you’ve got cancer must make your entire being want to shut down.  

 

Some do. Some just tuck themselves into their bed and don’t want to come out. 

 

Some just don’t know what to do. 

 

And then there are those that grab life by the horns and with all their strengths and dignity fight it to the bitter end. Bridget was that person. She chronicled her life in an amazing blog that I got turned onto a couple years ago.  I read it from start to finish then and have kept up with her religiously as she’s battled her way through.  She was determined to beat this. She had everything stacked against her and yet she fought on.  Go. Read her story.  Start from the beginning.  You’ll grow to love her as we all have. 

 

 

While I may never have met Bridget, I feel I know her.  So many of my 3Day family did know her and their hearts are broken today.  The world has lost a beautiful young lady. One who will not soon be forgotten and who’s journey will be spoken of for years to come. She may have moved on to that 3Day in the sky…be she will be with all of use, I guarantee, as we walk the 3Day this year. She certainly will be my co-pilot while I Walker Stalk. 

 

And if you’re sitting there wondering what you can do, donate to Susan G. Komen.  The clinical trials Bridget took part in were directly connected to grants given by Susan G. Komen.  She was allowed to spend more time on this earth because of donations.  

You can donate to my teammates if you feel so inclined.

SeattleSister In Law

Blueberry 

Getting Stuff Done

I'm a list person.

I'm sure I've mentioned a thousand times that I'm a list person.  I make a list. I work on tasks and I check off things on said list.

Sometimes lists A turns into List B and C.  List upon list.  There may be something on List A that requires a couple of other things to be done before it can be completed. Thus starting List B.  Really, in PM terms, lists are work breakdown structures for our lives.

Somehow in my life I figured out that one of the best ways to make myself feel like I've accomplished something is to put it on a list. I have been known - I admit - to put something on a list just to turn around and cross it off.

It's cathartic.

It's my therapy at times.

It's what drives me to get stuff done. 

I'm constantly baffled at how people who seem intelligent and active participants in this community can't get shit done.  It seems so simple to me. Make a list. Do the work.  Period. Yet, there seems to be a gene out there that blocks people's understanding about getting stuff done. Even the most mundane of tasks they can't seem to accomplish. It's baffling.

It makes me wonder how they get through life. What makes them feel accomplished? What makes them able to sit back and feel like they've done something worthwhile during their day?

I've had a recent situation arise in which it's taken almost a year for what I consider a simple task to get completed.  It still hasn't been completed, and I can guarantee that if I put this task on my list it would be done by months end. Easily. 

I, like many of you, have a full time job. I have friends I enjoy seeing. I have some type of life that keeps me busy and occupied. And yet, I manage my time so that I have a clean house (granted it's usually cleaned by my cleaners - but still I do have to clean in between visits). I manage to pay my bills on time. I manage to review my list and get stuff done on a regular basis.  It's not always in the time frame I had hoped (for example I still have a box of garage sale stuff sitting in the spare room instead of down in the garage where it belongs. The box has been there for 3 months and on the list that same amount of time.)

And yet, people who seem to have less than the average life stuff going on cannot manage to complete a task within a year.  It baffles me. And it makes me curious. Very curious.

What do other people do to get things done?  Maybe my list - ahem - fetish isn't normal? Maybe that I'm just an over achiever with really nothing else to do in my life but put stuff on a list and cross it off once completed? Maybe this person doesn't want to put stuff on a list because when it doesn't get completed it's depressing? Maybe this person doesn't have cool paper or a cool notebook to put said stuff on a list?

Maybe, just maybe, this person needs some guidance and direction about how to make lists and actually do stuff on them and understand the feeling of accomplishment?

Or maybe some people are just destined to wander through life never really getting anything done but feeling like they're always busy?  Either way, I still think a cool notebook to put stuff in is essential in life.