Oregon City + Mail Call = Wonderful Friday

Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh.

My vitamix came yesterday. I spent an amazing evening with Abby in Oregon City, and then came home at midnight to play with my new partner.

But first-- Oregon City was truly great. I sat and visited with Ben and Donna, Abby's parents, which had been too long. We then went to Tacho's for some eats and some karaoke. Let me just say, I love Tacho's. Every single server was super friendly and accommodating: one pulled out an extra table for us, as it was super crowded for karaoke night, another checked with the kitchen about 9 times regarding dairy and meat free foods. Our server, Angela, let me know what my vegan options were, and I got a side of beans and lettuce with 3 corn tortillas. Just threw some salsa on those bad boys, and it was a delicious dinner. I ordered a carafe of Sangria (couldn't help it--only 9 bucks!) and Abby got the Consuelo--a huge bowl of fruit juices and liquor.
As our server was walking across the karaoke/dance floor, the KJ got down on one knee and proposed. She said yes.

A night filled with tacos, karaoke, Abby, and a marriage proposal? How could it get any better?!

After my bus ride home, it did. It got even better.

Opened up my vitamix, put it together, and cleaned it. Just had to add 5 cups of warm water and a drop of detergent. Whizzed it for 30 seconds, then rinsed it out in the sink. Easy-peasy.
Still full from dinner, so I didn't want to make anything yet--I settled on putting together the HUGE recipe book they included.

Fell asleep dreaming of fresh vegetables.

This morning I bounced outta bed, and threw all this together: (just what I had laying around the house, will head to the grocery store today and get loads more vegetables and fruits)

2 cups spinach
1 cup frozen raspberries
1 apple, quartered
1 clementine, peeled
2 T flax seed
1 T agave
1/2 cup water

Turned it on variable, raised it up to 10, and blended on high for about 45 seconds.

How did my first green smoothie turn out?

Delicious. It's a dark red (almost brown) color, which doesn't look *as* appetizing as those pretty bright green smoothies in some recipes, but I'm not scared of a little rust color.
It made about 20 oz, which I'm proceeding to drink right now.
I think I'll have to get a thermos so I can take 1/2 of my future smoothies to work with me.

So--100% so far. It was a good investment, I know that already.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, my camera battery died, and I've been to forgetful to charge it. I'll post some recap pictures later.

Does anyone else have a vitamix? Have any recipes you want to share?

Wordstock 08

Wordstock.


I found this:


I escorted Rolf Potts' to his workshop.

Abby filled water bottles:
Abby, my brother Ahimsa, my friend Damien and I all volunteered our time today. Abby helped a blind lady out, and met and escorted some intriguing authors; Damien really wanted to see just one guy--Willy Vlautin. He bought his book, traded assignments so he could escort him, and planned to ditch out early just to attend his reading. But Willy Vlautin didn't show up. Boo. Poor Damien.

I wanted to escort Andre Dubus III (The House of Sand and Fog) or Rolf Potts (a vagabonding travel writer). Damien got handed the Rolf Potts assignment. I talked Damien into trading with me so I could escort him instead. ("Talked into" is a lie. I grabbed it out of his hand greedily, then realized I was acting like a grabby obnoxious baby, so asked nicely. Not a pretty moment for myself.)
That was the highlight of my day. We chatted a bit, I escorted him to his workshop, and I invited him down to the Ale House sometime this week for a beer, on me.

I, uh, also didn't have a time keeping device so had to keep asking him for the time, and didn't know any questions he asked me. So. There's that. One could say I wasn't the best author escort, but I would argue my passion and dedication more than makes up for my prepared-edness.

My brother Ahimsa was there from 9am to 3pm.

He did a lot of escorting and answering questions and also attended several panels and readings. There was a great panel of authors discussing their first publication, which he found helpful. One guy, 66 years old, finally got published, after trying since 1966. Sheesh. What tenacity! His name is Seldon Edwards. This is him:
It was a fun day. Then again, anything involving books, words, literature, authors, etc etc will be always be viewed as a fun day for me.

Wine and Wigs

Yesterday I rode my bike out to St. John's. I've never been out there before. It's adorable! It's a tiny little town/part of town situated in super North Portland. I rode with Shelley and Laura, and we stopped at Proper Eats Cafe for a minute. Great little place! It's a vegan co-op-y kind of place that's also a restaurant. It was about a 12 mile bike ride, there and back.


Then,
Abby and I went wine tasting. It was the annual autumn tasting sponsored by Galaxy Wines. We stuck to white wines and champagnes (real champagnes, too, not just "sparkling wines"). The fruit and cracker platter was tasty, but not enough to ward off a case of tipsy-ness.



It was awesome of Dave to invite us--he's the bar manager at BridgePort and gets these sorts of invites all the time.(Thanks, Dave!)


After wine tasting and hobnobbing, Abby and I made our way to a wig store, where I became the proud owner of a new hairstyle. What fun!

I desperately wanted her to experience the Liberty Glass, so we walked up there from my house. Played some BINGO (!), took some pictures:



Um, they have DELICIOUS mac and cheese. I should have taken a picture, but was too carried away by the sheer gooey-goodness of it.

Instead, I have a picture of my dinner tonight: mashed potatoes with sauteed spinach, butternut squash, sage and hazelnuts.



It's just work food, but the BridgePort Ale House has made some really good stuff recently. There's a yummy black bean burger (vegetarian but not vegan--it's made with a little bit of aioli) and a super duper yummy dish that has quinoa, tofu, arugula, and a vegan cashew-tomato sauce. KILLER!

I'm home early, and am headed to sleep soon, cuz I've got lots of stuff goin' on in the next few days: bowling tomorrow night, and then Rob and I are going out to McMenamins Edgefield on Thursday for the night! Fun! Have any of you guys been out there? I've been once, but it was so long ago! I'm most excited about the soaking pool and tea house. I'll take lots of pictures, I'm sure.

Shortened Version of My Weekend

I haven't written in a week. Some of you may have noticed?

I was in the process of making up for that by posting a really jam-packed, saturated, juicy blog, with pictures and funny stories and goodness. Having spent the last hour and a half on it, I was about 15 minutes from being finished. It was, I can safely say, a work of Art.
Granted, even if it wasn't, you'll never know, because...

I hit a wrong key. The whole thing--deleted. Dummy. Don't you hate that? So frustrating. So audios to the old, and welcome to the Reader's Digest condensed version. Here's a smattering of the pictures.
Recap: Hit up Liberty Glass, Vita Cafe, the Destory Store, Blue Gardenia Coffee Shop, Paddy's downtown for a Yelp Elite Event (my first!) and The White Eagle; rode by bike over to Joette's party; saw a train go by while I was riding home from work; ate a lot of good food like: Buffalo Chicken Wrap (vegan of course!), pasta with cremini mushrooms, broccoli, spinach, garlic, and red sauce, tofu fries with spicy peanut sauce, plantain chips (my new absolute favorite snack! They're like a buck sixty at Trader Joe's); went grocery shopping; drank too much of everything--especially white wine and martinis-- got rained on a bunch; got invited to a wine tasting; went to a movie; spent time with Joette, Luke, Rob, Abby, Ingrid and Laura; and really just had an action-packed weekend.

Blah.

2 important things

I want to tell you about this place. It's called Liberty Glass. It is a purple house that sits atop the hill of Mississippi Avenue. I've been there 3 times in the last 24 hours. This bar/restaurant/cozy oasis is my new home away from home. If you live in Portland, go there. If you don't live here (come visit!), then maybe you should think about moving here (Hi Anna!) just for places like this. It's cozy and sweet and homey and a bar with delicious veg*n food (they have meat here too, for those of you who eat that stuff) and sweet sweet sassy servers.

Also, I want to tell you about YELP. For those of you who don't utilize this website, you should start. It's in every major city. Come here to read reviews, to write reviews, to post pictures and events coming up, to look for people to meet--it's like a Craigslist meets CitySearch meets Facebook. But better. Check it out.

That's all. I had a wonderful weekend--lots of biking, eating, drinking, napping, getting passport pictures taken (MUCH cuter this time!) and cleaning. Headed back to work tomorrow.

My best friend Abby gets back from Mexico this week and my mom and little brother Jesse are coming up to visit too! Busy week!