i'll point in the direction you sing to me

I could swear the weather man said yesterday was going to be in the 80s. Which means he basically lied or doesn't know jack (or I'm mistaken, as vanishing a possibility as that is), because yesterday? Was hot. Not surface of the sun hot, but when you're expecting 80s and you get mid 90s, that's not good times, y'all.

Which means the dinner I'd planned to make for myself had to be scrapped because I have no desire to eat anything when it's hot, let alone cook anything. Which meant no leftovers, and thus, today's lunch of randomness. Like that's anything new.

breakfast, pink strawberry sidecar:

• half a Granny Smith apple
• blueberries
• blackberries
• slice of (homemade by me!) zucchini bread

lunch, blue bunny & moons:

• ham rolls
• cucumber slivers
• smoked gouda
• cheese crackers (Annie's organic bunny crackers ftw!)
• the other half of the Granny Smith apple, sliced
• another slice of (homemade by me!) zucchini bread
• blueberries
• dark chocolate covered raisins

Needs some more veggies and a carb/starch, but oh well.

I've been on the hunt for a CD by a short-lived band called Blue Merle, and didn't want to have to resort to Amazon* if I could help it. Stopped by Everyday Music downtown last night, but they didn't have it, and it showed as backordered (read: unavailable for order) on their computer. The guy offered to call their other stores and thankfully, the store on Sandy had it (and put it on hold for me), but I wasn't in the mood to slog through rush hour traffic down Burnside to the east side and through all that construction where they're diverting Sandy onto Couch.

*(No iTunes, either, unless I'm desperate and/or lazy. I HATE that they make it difficult or impossible to burn (some? most? all?) songs as MP3s on a disc (vs. being able to make a regular audio CD...so nice of them to "allow" us dirty peasants to start doing that finally) so I don't buy much music on iTunes, unless I'm sure I won't want to make a big mix MP3 CD with it. I'm a slave to all things tech and electronic as much as the the next geek girl, but don't fuck with my music, for that way lies badness.)

So I texted Sally to see if he wanted to head over there with me after he got home from work. And this is reason #65,782 that Portland is awesome, because Everyday Music is not only open, y'know, every day, but they are also, ALSO open until midnight every day. We've taken advantage of this very feature many times in the past, and I was quite pleased to be able to last night, because I really wanted that CD nowish. I know! What is up with me and this instant gratification thing? It's like I'm five years old.

Sal picked up the new Mumford & Sons while we were there, and we had a nice drive home listening to new music with the windows rolled down, cruising through our nighttime city.

I've been all over the place with music lately, which is generally an indication of my mood. So I guess that means I've got a lot knocking around in my noggin of late. Broken Bells, Fleet Foxes, Aimee Mann (of course), Cat Power, Mirah, Blue Foundation, Bon Iver (I can't imagine ever tiring of them) and then randomly, early No Doubt and Journey(!) and Nirvana. Wtf, brain?

Oh, and I'm obsessed with that new Brandon Flowers single, "Crossfire". (And revisiting The Killers because of it, along with Pet Shop Boys, because holy crap, do they sound like each other.)

Weirdly, though, I haven't been in the mood for The Decemberists lately, which has me a bit freaked out, frankly. (Though I expect my burning love will be reignited after the concert in a couple of weeks.) I mean, The Decemberists are my constant! What happens if I get caught between time dimensions and my nose starts bleeding and then the smoke monster comes for me? What then?

a feeling of fall in the air...

It's not even September yet and already it feels like fall. Last week's heat wave came (thankfully) to a halt with the cooler weather of the PNW that we know and love, and it seems like the switch has been flipped into fall, even if the calendar doesn't say so. This happens to me every year, the feeling that fall is coming by the end of August, and with it, a deep-seated drive to get the winterizing done before the first frost in September.

Which is hilarious, really, because if we get any frost at all, it won't be until November/December, and we have months of warm weather and beautiful days ahead of us still. What can I say, 27 years in Wyoming, those old instincts die hard. But the vine maples do start changing right around this time, so it's not entirely without premise that I would be sensing that autumnal feeling in the air. Although I did hear on the news last night that we're not done with the heat yet...another 90 degree day coming up tomorrow, supposedly....

Regardless, a roast/stew in the crockpot yesterday seemed just the thing. And I did a bit of baking to use up the zucchini and summer squash that've been in our share for the last few weeks now. So I'm ready for fall, even if the mercury has decided to make a few more jumps upward.

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• stew: potatos, carrots, onions, green & royal burgundy beans, chard, and tomato with a pork shoulder roast
• onion sesame crackers and some gouda
• fresh-picked blackberries* (with a few leaves of greens for contrast)
• homemade zucchini bread

*We had a wonderful, wonderful family weekend with Sister, Guy, and the Fabulous Miss M, which included berry picking at a nearby farm. More about that hopefully tomorrow, when I have a couple of pictures that we took together.

(NOTE: I fixed the issue that was making the small pictures unclickable. Now when you click it, the small image above should open up a larger version.)

what, addiction? never heard of it.

lunch, Paris slimline:

• grilled Thai peanut chicken skewers
• jasmine rice
• green and royal burgundy string beans
• cucumber
• rainbow carrots
• cheese bunny crackers (Annie's Organic...we're currently re-addicted to them) with a small container of ranch for dipping hidden underneath
• in the mini sidecar, random pieces of chocolate caramel cut from the big block in the fridge

If you've been following my bento pictures for awhile, you've no doubt noticed that many of them include a bit of chocolate in some form, usually my beloved dark chocolate covered raisins. It's in small quantities -- no more than an ounce, sometimes less -- but it seems to be just enough to satiate my craving for chocolate.

It's been WAY too long since I had any chocolate in my lunch, if my withdrawal symptoms are anything to go by, so you can imagine the cry of delight/relief when Sal mentioned that there was still some chocolate caramel in the fridge that he made for one of his class demonstrations awhile back. I did not wrap my arms around the big block of deliciousness encased in parchment paper and promise my soul and future progeny that my dark mistress would never leave me again. I have my pride after all, and anyway, you can't prove anything.

heat and the marking of a decade

This weekend was the kind of hot I loathe, the kind that sucks every last bit of will and energy you have and spits it out on the baking sidewalk to sizzle into oblivion. We had exactly two things on our to-do list for this weekend -- 1) washing the Prius, and 2) washing the Camry -- and accomplished neither of them.

But! We do get to sleep on the back porch when it gets hot like this, and we have a perfectly idyllic backyard to enjoy, so there are things to be thankful for. Plus -- and I do feel guitly about this -- as hot as it's been and is forecasted to get, we've had an insanely cool and mild summer while the rest of the country has sweltered. So really, I have no business complaining.

lunch, blue bunny & moons

• grilled Thai peanut chicken skewers
• jasmine rice
• green and royal burgundy string beans
• rainbow carrots
• cherries
• Babybel cheese with sour cream & chive bunny crackers as gap filler

Yesterday marked the 10 year anniversary since we packed up our possessions and left Wyoming for our Great Oregon Adventure. Tomorrow will mark 10 years since we became Oregonians. Ten years. It seems simultaneously like it was just yesterday and like it was another lifetime.

and the stars, they fall, but they burn brightest then

After Sal got off work last night, we packed a small cooler with snacks, a bag with warm clothes, grabbed the camp chairs, threw it all in the trunk, and around midnight, headed to the Gorge to catch the Perseids. Last night (early this morning) was supposedly the best night for the shower and they were forecasting as many as 188/hour at the peak.

taken on our daytrip; this is the view from the lookoutI'd had the idea to try a lookout on the Old Columbia River Highway -- it was fresh in my mind after our daytrip with Cat a couple of weeks ago -- called "Portland Women's Forum" (yes, I know, it's a weird name for a lookout point). The lookout point is actually on a hillside so the entrance is at the top, there's a long driveway with parking along its length, and then a turnabout at the bottom, with fir trees on the western edge and a vantage that looks east toward Vista House and across the Gorge. We figured there was a good chance that either 40 billion people had the same idea, or that it hadn't occurred to anyone and we'd have the place to ourselves. But it was only an hour from the house and would be a great vantage point and we were on an adventure, so we figured we'd give it a shot.

Well, we didn't have the place to ourselves, and there were cars parked along the highway leading up to the lookout point, but it wasn't bad at all. We didn't have to park far from the entrance and after a short walk, found a nice spot at the bottom of the hill to set up our chairs with some space all around us. There were probably a few dozen people at the bottom of the hill with us, spread out across a clearing that's a few hundred feet in diameter, so it wasn't crowded at all. And then we just settled in facing east/northeast, munching on snacks and enjoying the show.

Earlier in the evening, the stargazing n00bs (or straight-up dumbasses) did the usual n00bery of driving the whole length of the parking lot as if they're going to magically find a spot that all the other people parked up on the road didn't find, and blinding us all with their lights -- or, god help me, fog lights -- and generally earning the ill will of a hundred strangers. The morons who'd parked directly across from us and left about 45 minutes after we got there will never know how close they came to a messy demise -- they piddly-dinked around their SUV for about 10 minutes while they were getting ready to leave, the SUV's rear lights and brake lights on the whole entire time. They were apparently oblivious to shouts from the crowd to turn off the effing lights, so they fail at not only stargazing etiquette, but also, basic common sense and general courtesy.

But dumbasses notwithstanding, it was great fun. People talked and laughed softly and there was a kind of low-key party atmosphere about the whole thing. Whenever a particularly good meteor streaked across the sky, there'd be a collective "Ooooooh" all across the lookout area. At one point, some wit hilariously quipped, "Double rainbow!" which had Sal and I busting up for quite some time. Ah Internets, what was life like before you?

from the NASA websiteThe night was beautiful and calm and perfect for watching the meteor shower. Which was breathtaking. We saw quite a few meteors and in between, just sat in comfortable silence enjoying the moment and being together and thinking how incredibly lucky we are.

We left at 2 before it really ramped up because we had an hour long drive back and had to work today. So worth it, though! We hadn't done that kind of thing in a long time -- way too long, in truth -- and we were reminded how much we enjoy them, love being able to throw some things in the car at midnight and take off somewhere...I think there'll be more night time jaunts in our future.

lunch lady, lunch lady, make me a lunch

(Imagine the title sung to "Matchmaker, Matchmaker" from "Fiddler on the Roof", and you will see that I am, in fact, both brilliant and hilarious. Just sayin'.)

lunch, Laptop Lunch:

• PB&J cutouts (peanut butter and marionberry jam on Sal's homemade ciabatta) with cherry tomatoes, green and royal burgundy beans, and itsy bitsy carrots as gap fillers -- the cutouts are supposed to be a heart, butterfly, flower, and tulip, but they didn't come out as well with the ciabatta as they do with the nine-grain bread)
• molded egg, carrots, royal burgundy beans as gap fillers, and cucumber hearts for a little garnish
• donut peach (cut in half for easier eating) with a cucumber heart for garnish (and more cucumber slices underneath the peach)
• ginormous marionberries and some dip for the veggies in the little condiment container

No lunch Monday because I was sick, no lunch Tuesday because of a working lunch thing, and of course no lunches Wednesdays (and Fridays) because of my work-from-home days. So only today's this week, and yet I stared at my empty fridge and cupboards in desperation last night, wondering petulantly why I don't have a personal chef.

Oh right, I do! Except, yanno, he works at night AND he has this annoying habit of making just what's needed for a meal so there aren't many leftovers from the weekends when he cooks. I know, right? How inconsiderate of him to be all efficient and stuff.

And of course I don't cook as much as I should on the weeknights, especially in the summer, and so I get the lunches I've been having. Which are good, don't get me wrong, and certainly better than eating out, but they look like they were made by someone with no access to modern appliances and no ability to make something more complicated than toast. I'm no chef, it's true, but I am a decent cook, though you certainly wouldn't know it from my lunches. Sigh.

So I'm on a mission! To make actual entrees for dinner at night so I have leftovers the next day. Of course, I'm resolving to do this at the start of what's forecast to be a week-long heatwave, so perhaps I'll wuss out and wait until that passes. But I am going to have something for lunch that necessitates eating utensils sometime soon.

on letting our inner child out once in awhile

I had an ice cream cone for dinner last night. That's it. Just a two-scoop-chocolate-mousse-strawberry-ice-cream-on-a-chocolate-dipped-waffle-cone dinner.

It was that kind of day.

(I also ended up eating a ginormous salad at about 1:30 in the morning, because wtf I don't even know.) There's something to be said for having an ice cream cone for dinner, because who didn't dream of that when they were a kid? I figure we all gotta let that kid out once awhile, otherwise crazy shit happens, like wearing your bunny slippers as a hat or buying a Michael Bolton CD.

None of that has anything to do with today's lunch, other than I was up until two in the morning and this is just a random collection of things. They just happen to look pretty and be insanely healthy because we have a weekly CSA and our fridge is overflowing with gorgeous produce. So...yay?

lunch, black strawberry

• mini salad of red leaf and green lettuces, cherry tomatoes, cucumber (cut into pretty shapes...haven't done that in awhile!)
• boiled egg halves (sadly, not molded)
• provider (green) and royal burgundy string beans
• fresh basil
• sausages (underneath everything)
• blueberries
• Marcona almonds
• dark chocolate covered raisins
• homemade sweet vinaigrette
• sea salt

gettin' a little fancy

I don't know why it is, but my Paris slimline box inevitably ends up the most design-y of my lunches, even when I'm not really planning it to be. Or, as happened last night, when I was really just trying to fill the thing up with whatever I could scrounge. I suppose that must be the mysterious magic of slimline boxes, and why people like them.

lunch, Paris slimline:

• sausages
• molded egg
• peas
• cherry tomatoes
• blueberries
• Jazz apple slices
• dark chocolate covered raisins

weekend fun, then back to the grind

I purposefully chose the Ms. Bento this morning as a motivator to get myself out the door at lunch and eat at the park. I haven't had a chance in awhile to do that. It's so easy each day for me to get to a point where I just can't get away and end up eating at my desk, so sometimes I just have to Have A Plan. And the only way I could drag myself out of my comfy bed this morning, after such a fun weekend, was to promise myself that I would eat lunch at the park today, dammit.

lunch, Ms. Bento

• stir fry -- kale, rainbow chard, bok choy, onion, garlic, chicken, broccoli, snow peas, peanuts, secret special sauce ;)
• jasmine rice
• half a Jazz apple (the other half, along with some blueberries, served as breakfast)
• chocolate covered raisins

So Cat arrived Friday evening and we headed over to Screen Door, which was her suggestion. She'd heard about it online somewhere -- she has a love and fascination for all things Southern -- and we'd never been there, so it was perfect. Always love trying a new place, but especially with someone who's as interested in a new culinary adventure as we are.

There was a half hour wait, so we walked down the block for iced tea/coffee until our turn for a table came up. We were lucky to get a table on the patio, and the evening was just absolutely PNW perfect: mid-70s, no wind, sunny with a few high clouds. So glad it wasn't hot, because I just have no appetite in the heat and nothing on the menu would've sounded good to me. When she was here this time last year, we were in the midst of 100 degree temperatures, and it sucked.

Unhampered by heat, then, we proceeded to order a gazillion different things: hush puppies and fritters, corn on the cob and buttermilk fried chicken, and a banana and caramel and shortbread pie thing that we probably would've sold ourselves into indentured servitude for. Sally had to work, so we decided early on we'd start a box of leftovers to take home for him, which freed us up to oder so many dishes...win/win!

We rolled out of there stuffed and content and headed home to relax and visit until Sally got home. We probably could've talked well into the wee hours, but since we were planning to spend our Saturday in the Gorge, we decided to be responsible adults and turn in for a good night's rest.

Saturday started out cool and overcast, then cleared and warmed up later, which seems to be the pattern for the last week or so. Cat had never been to the Gorge, nor seen Multnomah Falls, so we decided this had to be rectified immediately.

So we spent the day on a leisurely drive on the Historic Columbia River Highway, stopping at different view points and landmarks along the way, as well as each of the falls that lead up to Multnomah. While we were up on the ridges portion of the highway, there was no wind at all -- unusual for the Gorge -- so it made the stop at Vista House in particular especially nice.

We stopped for a picnic at Wahkeena Falls, then on to Multnomah at last. Which...well, the sky had cleared and it was a beautiful day by then, but we were reminded why we've never been there on a Saturday at the height of tourist season. HOLY CRAP! People everywhere, and the bridge across the falls was packed, and it eliminated any desire we normally have to linger and enjoy the view the way we usually do when we're there. Despite the hordes of people, however, we did still get lots of beautiful pictures.

We kept going east to Hood River, where one of Sal's former students had recently opened a bakery and he was hoping we'd be able to stop in for a bit. Except he couldn't remember the name. So Cat and I both googled madly with the vague clues for some hint of what the place was called and where we'd find it. Thank goodness that man has passengers with unstoppable google-fu or he'd never find anything....

But find it, we did. Unfortunately, the bakery was closed for the day, but he could see someone (not his studen) inside working some dough. He didn't want to disturb them, but Cat and I insisted that we knock on some windows, find a back door, something. Which earned us designations as rabblerousers, like that was a bad thing. Joke's on him.

We were let inside and got an after hours tour of his former student's bakery, met both her and one of her pastry chefs, talked about the challenges of opening a bakery in a small town, providing product for less traditional-pastry-educated palates, the differences between East Coast and West Coast, and the surprising things that do and don't sell. It was a great experience to see the effect of Sal's work, and how much he inspires his students, and how much they look up to him.

We ended up back at home later than originally planned so scrapped our original dinner plans and instead (thanks to the gracious suggestion of Cat, who is the most thoughful house guest imaginable), opted for pizzas from Pizza Fino and a homemade salad. We were able to eat outside on the patio, then once the mosquitos drove us inside, changed into our jammies and curled up on the couch to visit until bedtime.

Her departure on Sunday morning came all too soon, but such is the way of things when you have a dear friend visiting. We're so fortuante to have friends who visit as often as they do, and who welcome us for visits, too. Now if we could just get that whole "independently wealthy" gig going so we didn't have to limit ourselves to weekends in between job obligations, we'd be able to make those visits far more frequent....