Thursday, October 21, 2010

technical difficulties..........

Well, we finally got real internet! Hurray! No more wondering or waiting or slow as hell connections. The bad news, however, is that in it's sickness, my machine has lost the drivers for my memory card reader. No pictures. I take pictures, but they are stuck in the camera. Any solutions to this? Anyone? I have the point and shoot, which will still load pictures into the computer, as soon as Kelly brings it back from Hawaii, we'll be back in business. Oh, ya, did i mention Kelly's in Hawaii? Lucky lucky lucky!

Now i will do my best to recap the last few weeks with no pictures. Sorry.

So school started. I am taking four classes, american government, astronomy, english comp 2, and public speaking. Online, all of them. I was nervous, still am, about having all of my classes online, wondering if i would even do it... i am doing it, and it's going pretty well. Astronomy is HARD. It occurred to me early on that Physics 122 was possibly not the best choice of classes for someone who has not taken a math class in 10 years. Me and google ( google and I ) are working it out, though.

Weekend before last my dad was in town. He arrived Saturday afternoon, hung out with Shannon and Adam, they came into Savoy for dinner saturday night. On sunday we went to a shop called Naomi's Farm Supply where they were having, what they called, a young farmer's mixer. Sounds fun, ya? It pretty much was. I heard of it first from Tressa, the woman who is salt, fire, and time, and then from Tonia, whose instructors were all volunteering at the event. It was put on by a group called the greenhorns, a non profit that works to support young farmers and people choosing agriculture as a career. The day was lovely, we sat in a couple of seminars, i didn't learn anything but hopefully shannon did. We had some awesome chili, courtesy of SFT, who were doing the food for the event. Monday morning brought brunch at broder, of course. This was the third monday in a row shannon and I had been there and it was nice to bring other people to confirm the awesomeness that we know is real. And they did. It was so awesome.
Oh, J***** Sh** damn! I forgot the most important part! I got a tea plant! For all of you who have bothered to read my mind in the last 6 months or so, you already know about my tea growing desires. The rest of you, get with the program. I now own a tea plant, camellia sinensis. I went right home, cut a few of the largest leaves off, dried them, steamed them and then baked them as directed by the internet but the tea was not so teaish. I have a book now that i'm reading about how to actually do it, more to come.....

The next weekend, my mom came to town. Same schedule, she got to town Saturday afternoon and came to dinner with the Blys saturday night. Sunday we had brunch at my house and the walked up to Hawthorne to shop and stroll. At Village Merchants, where we stopped because i am currently dresser shopping, i noticed a fantastic yellow leotard with some sequin details and a bodice made of yellow plastic feathers. I admired it in passing, no dresser, moved on. At the red light on Hawthorne, after finding an awesome new pair of boots, i found a hat of sorts, more like a wig, made of yellow feathers. From there, 2010 halloween costume just clicked. Uh, of course i'm going to be lady gaga for halloween. I mean, what else? Rushed back to purchase said leotard and it was on. I already own the hot pink leggings and white mini skirt, just need shoes and a serious black wig. Oh, halloween, why are you the most expensive day of the year? That evening, i hosted a going away party for my friend Jennifer from whole foods, she is headed to california for a new job and new love. Wonderful party, it was just mom's in town sized, not too rowdy, not too late. Good food, great folks. I am going to be having another party here soon, it was so much fun!

Um, other stuff, i'm sure......  

Monday, October 4, 2010

Tino y Guillermo

At Savoy, there are two fantastic Guatemalan men who work as the dish prep guys. Guillermo is 19 and speaks incredibly good english for only having been here 2 years and learning it as his third language. He is possibly the funniest person I've ever met. Tino is his older cousin, we have less language in common but have a system of communicating through noises and hand gestures that can be pretty comical. They work harder than any of us, longer, and more often. Needless to say, they are highly valued members of the savoy team.

On Saturday, Tino was quiet and kinda down but didn't say anything about it. After we closed ( and after dos cervezas) he came out with his story. Apparently, his 17 year old brother was caught trying to get over the border and was in jail in Phoenix. This caused quite an uproar through the whole restaurant, plans began immediately for fundraisers and lawyer friends and such. It's quite interesting that we would immediately assume that because we are white people, or citizens of this country, that our opinion on whether that kid should be able to stay here would make any difference. Tony, the voice of reason, was the one who eventually pointed out that, even though it's super common, sneaking across the border is completely illegal. Doing it constitutes breaking a law and breaking laws gets you put in jail. A phone call from a bartender friend  of the family of an incarcerated illegal alien thousands of miles away is not likely to get him released. That being said, Sean, the bartender and only Spanish speaker among us, got the 800 number from Tino and is going to call and try to get info on the situation. Scary. And sad. It has definitely brought the giant immigration debate closer to home. I may pay a bit more attention. Updates to come.........

Friday, October 1, 2010

Oh what a week, so far...

Erg, ok, i'm going to begin this week monday morning... Brunch at Broder with Shannon. Freaking fantastic. Broder is our sister restaurant at Savoy, same owner, same basement, I have a lot of interaction with these folks. We sat in the window seat, giant windows open to the street, on such a lovely morning, it was perfect. I had apple fritters served with 2 eggs, creme fraiche, maple syrup, and a sausage. Shannon had one of their baked egg dishes, I think bacon, onion, gouda, with a potato pancake as her side. I thought my meal as a whole was absolutely fantastic, Shannon thought the same of hers, but that the potato pancake was the definite highlight. I am sorry there are no pictures of this, you will just have to trust us. Go to Broder for brunch, i promise it's awesome.

After this we came back to my house, re grouped and headed to my neighborhood library. I got a card (!) and we looked around a bit, then headed home. Shannon put a few books on hold, I guess this library trip wasn't as exciting as it seemed in my brain. Sophie came along, if that helps. After the library we headed down to Hawthorne to a frozen yogurt place that I always see a million people in front of. We enter, approach the counter and are greeted by two enormous Hawaiian looking men.They explain the self serve policy and we go for it. A wall of soft serve machines and two islands of toppings to put on top. Also a fresh fruit bar. Then you pay by the pound. It was not so expensive, super fun to pick out the stuff you wanted, and i'm glad I came here with Shannon so I could see what was going on. That being said, it was more chemicals and artificial preservatives, and colorings and questionable dairy products than I have put in my body in the last year, all in one ice cream sitting. Call me a snob if you want but I definitely felt the effects later on that evening. After a point it was like a dark cloud settled on me, I was unhappy, with a huge headache and thinking horribly negative thoughts about everything.  Maybe just a sugar crash but I don't know, it was intense. I ended up making tea and going to bed to read harry potter, i'm re-reading the last book, and after a while felt better but I will no longer make crazy exceptions and allow things like that to enter my body. No bueno.

Tuesday was mostly school, more about that later, then I had an awesome dinner with Tonia, I swear, the pizza place in oregon city is one of my favorite restaurants ever. Every meal I have there is epic, this one included. We took a walk along the waterfront, saw a person in the paper mill!!!!!!!!!!!(First one ever, swear to god thought the place was run by umpa lumpas) and then went on to do other things you can ask me about later...............

Wednesday brought a hike, Shannon and I headed out about four for forest park. It was a way northwest hike in the park so we went almost to the turnoff to sauvie island, turned left and went up the hill on Germantown road. This road was insane! It went straight up the side of a huge hill, twisting and turning, with a million cars going both ways. Where were they going? We finally found our parking area, one turn too late and almost bottomed out getting in the "out" section.  Rallied, headed off. The trail was beautiful, incredibly well maintained and very fallish. I wish I could leave this part out but... we followed the trail expecting to do a loop, like it had outlined in the book. The signage was a joke and we hiked about 3 miles when we ended up on a very busy road. Where we were on the maps we found along the trail, what road was this, and where were we exactly were questions that were never really answered. We ended up turning around entirely and following the same trail back. Fine, great, we made it back. But seriously! Get the maps figured out, forest park, what's the deal? Sophie had a great time, anyway.













It was a great, well needed stint in the woods, for sure. The sun was beaming through the trees, giving heat to the otherwise cool forest. We made it out before dark, thank goodness, that would have been scary.