My half birthday (Or, "Yum")

Last Thursday--Again?

Yep.

I'm really sleepy right now, so what follows is the text of my night, preceded above by pictures. Not energy enough for moving and shaking, if you will.

I ate a flax seed plus waffle this morning for breakfast. Half of it had Adam's crunchy peanut butter, the other half had some strawberry jam my friend Colin made for me. Cut it in half and YUM! Waffle Sandwich!

Tonight after work, I received a giraffe finger puppet. After a small discussion of what to call him, his name came to me. I will call him Noam-Gnome the Giraffe. He's cute, and will be friends with my pet (toy) wombat. He is seen above helping me drink my glass of $4 champagne.

At the Vita, we shared some Buffalo Tofu Things, with house-made vegan ranch. YUM! Again. Spicy fried tofu? Is there anything better? After tonight, I think I may have reached the pinnacle in deliciousness of spicy tofu snacks.

Headed over to Tour De Crepes again (just like last month) and had a Sangria. Again, yum. Headed down the street. Lots of Awesome art. Some good vegan lemon blueberry poundcake. More Awesome art. More meandering.

Ended up at Bye and Bye. Craig Steele and Laura came to visit (Laura and I pictured above). Joette and Shelley and Ahi and Mik all hung out for awhile. Mik got the Bye and Bye special--I don't know what it was, but it was red and in a huge mason jar and had a lemon wedge garnish. Pretty delicious and drinkable. It is also pictured above for your viewing pleasure. Shelley and I split a meatless meatball sub with a side of collard greens. Yum! But, no picture. Too dark in bar, and too delicious not to get in our mouths right away.

Got sleepy, walked home. It took, no joke, about an hour and a half. But it was beautiful. Lovely night, not chilly, nice views.
Except--I did see a guy beating his girlfriend in front of their friends outside a house, and heard a guy sock another guy in the belly after that. I hope they were okay. My phone was dead, or I might have done something about it... as it was, I just kept walking. I hope that's okay.

Home now, Ingrid is listening to Scissor Sisters and break-dancing, I'm typing away madly, trying to work my way into sleep.

I had a wonderful half-birthday and am thankful that this year, my golden year, has been so wonderful and spiritually fulfilling. I've got to head into work tomorrow and Saturday, then I'm going on a half-birthday camping/hiking/backpacking trip with my brother, his dog Storm, Shelley, her dog Niya, and perhaps one or two other people on Sunday. Should be a blast. Goodnight, and sorry for the lack of continuity of pictures/text tonight.

Sleepy time.

I came to get down

Yesterday I knew I was going to have a good day when I had lunch: the Ale House's Antipasta Plate: pumpkin hummus, grilled flatbread, house-made pickles, greens, and instead of the olives I substituted carrot and celery sticks. Ate about half of it (I wasn't feeling the onions and tomatoes, or really the pickles, and didn't eat all the hummus either). Felt good.

After work, Craig Steele picked me up in his Zip Car and we headed to the White Eagle, my new neighborhood bar. I haven't seen him for awhile, but we always have such a great time. Snacked on some food--cajun tots, a salad, and a bowl of soup. And several glasses of wine for me, a few PBRs for him.
Meandered the block and a half home, where Ingrid was making a puppet:


I sweet-talked Ingrid into showing off a little of her moves (which admittedly isn't hard; she can break-dance at the drop of a hat).
Ings definitely has some moves, but Craig Steele suprised me--a very quick study! They were awesome to watch. (I'm trying to figure out uploading videos so you, too, can experience the awesome-ness, but it's not really working. I will try later...)

After break-dancing took it's toll, we started dance-dancing. Outkast, Arctic Monkeys, who knows what else? I was in my wine world, and ran to adorn my feet in my gold high heels. Sometimes a girl's just gotta wear heels when she dances, even if it's 3:30 in the morning, even if she's wearing pajamas, even if she's clumsy and falls down on the floor. Sometimes it's just the right thing to do.

We also took the Enneagram Test online, alternating test-taking with dancing. (I always test strongly for Type 2, but I don't know if I believe it. If you haven't heard of this, check it out. Regardless of how much it fits you, it's extremely interesting.)

Then the wigs came out. I unfortunately do not have any good pictures of the wigs (Ingrid?) but there was a pink one (Craig Steele looked smashing in it), a mullet one, and my old red and black one from Halloween a few years back (I was Al-ice Capone). Here's the best one I got:



I think after the wigs and dancing and boxed wine (I know, I didn't mention the boxed part of it before. But it's not too bad! Each box contains 3-4 bottles of wine, and stays good for 4 weeks. A smashing deal.) and high heels and personality tests and Michael Jackson we were all ready for bed. Craig Steele headed home about 4:30am (Yikes, right?!) and I passed out into a sleepy happy pile on my bed.

here's a wee video I hope works:

Don't forget to vote!

Oh yeah--if you're interested in Veg*n-related things, voting, or prizes like a trip to New York, vote here for the Veg News 2008 Reader Poll. Portland has a lot of wordplay on there.

Life's a Beach

We drove to the beach today. By "we", I mean Ingrid. I passengered. Seaside was the ultimate destination, in (large) part to the Skee Ball, Photo Booths, and the Boardwalk.
We took a long peaceful walk on the sand in our cowboy boots when we arrived.

Caught up on past and current loves, and on the stories of the past 2 years.

Hungry for food, but hungrier for Skee Ball. Stopped by the car to get some Red Delicious Apples as a snack. This is what they looked like on the inside:

Red Not So Delicious.
Wanted the sweet sweet taste of Skee instead, so headed over to the Arcade. 5 bucks got us 25 minutes and loads of laughs. The prizes we picked out included a disco ball keychain, a tootsie roll, and an atomic fireball.

Ready for lunch, it was time for Dooger's. Really, that's the name. I got a side of steamed veggies and garlic bread (and a beer, of course) and Ings ordered the veggie burger and fries. (And a beer, of course.)


After lunch, we checked out the boardwalk, looking for thrift stores, checking out the paddle boats in the bay, and staying warm in the sun. Headed to the Shilo Inn on the waterfront for a cocktail. I had the Mochatini--a total frou-frou drink, and/but pretty tasty. Ings had a Spanish Coffee, minus the whip cream (And extra extra triple sec, apparently. The thing tasted like orange-flavoured coffee.) Next round I got the same and she got a cognac. Michael, the bartender from Beaverton, took our picture.

After drinks, we took a nice evening stroll along the water, finding holes and taking pictures (I will not make any jokes about this sentence.)

We were obviously feeling silly and a little tipsy.

Hungry again, we hit up some other tavern with big tv's and big attitudes. I drank an Anchor Porter and Ings stuck with Soda Water (good girl). We shared some nachos. It was about 8 by this time, so we headed down to catch the sunset before the drive back. Ocean sunsets are beautiful every single time.



It was an awesome day, and to boot, I got my passport photos taken today, so just have to mail off the application and wait a few weeks, and BAM! I'll have a new Passport. Am sorta tempted to get a new picture taken though--the lady didn't warn me and I look so goofy. And young, but that's par for course. Another $9 doesn't seem so bad compared with another 10 years of a terrible picture...

Anyway, perfect weekend and ready to go back to work tomorrow.

I want to ride my bicycle

I rode my bicycle uphill today. Both ways. In the snow.

It felt like it, at any rate. Biking up Mississippi is quite an undertaking. I kept thinking, "My littlelegs cannot do this! This huffing and puffing is not natural. I should just get off and walk the rest of the way."
I persevered, however. I was the little Nessa that could. All that sweat and dry throat and exhaustion (and really, this hill probably wouldn't intimidate most of you. But lord, I'm still practicing!) kept getting recycled into this: I will work really really hard right now. I will peddle as fast as my legs can go. I will drip sweat. And in a few minutes, I will reward myself with a margarita.

Which I did. 3 margaritas. Yum. And you know what? The bike ride home? So much easier. All downhill. I don't think I had to peddle for more than 60 seconds at a time. That's what I love about uphill--there's always a downhill on the way back (and usually a margarita!)