Cluck cluck!

After a few hours of chilling at our hotel post-race, we met up with our friend Luke for dinner at Screen Door. (I’ve been planning to reward myself with their fried chicken if I made it through the race for about a month.) In the past, I’ve had issues post-race with my stomach being nauseous and feeling terrible, so it’s a testament to my improved nutrition plan that I finished this one feeling relatively okay. I still stuck with liquids (including a Mexican Coke generously relinquished by my mom) and watermelon for the first couple of hours post-race. Some of which may or may not have been consumed in a jacuzzi tup watching TV…

Anyway, I donned my super-sexy compression sleeves to accessorize my otherwise appropriate dinner attire and we hobbled off to dinner. (I love Portland because no one batted an eye at my strange attire, except for another diner who asked how my race went… ) We got a seat on the outdoor patio and I ordered my first Manhattan in about 14 years.

Yum! When M & I had been at Screen Door last winter, we’d sat at the bar and watched them crank out a million of these. I swore I’d try one next time I was here and voila! Apparently, they’re the hot drink right now. Who knew? Plus, it’s nice to have a non-frilly drink in my arsenal… And then of course, the star attraction:

(Apparently, I was too hungry/excited to get a picture that was in focus… ) I’ll confess I only made it through about a third of it before the stomach cried uncle, but it would make for delicious leftovers. We bid Luke adieu and headed home for some much needed sleep. And another soak in the jacuzzi tub.

But our Portland indulgences were not done. As part of the morning errands we had to take care of before we could head home, I had one more piece of decadence on my list. A trip to Pine State Biscuits:

This place opened just as we were leaving Portland and I’ve been meaning to visit for years, having heard wonderful things about it. Ordinarily, I can’t resist the siren song of Jam, but luckily this place was much closer to our hotel. And because I could, I went for the Reggie Deluxe:

That’s right, more fried chicken. On a biscuit. With bacon, egg, cheese and gravy. So much Southern-ness in one place. (My sister-in-law joked that they needed to serve it on top of grits… ) It was delicious (duh) but definitely not an every day indulgence. (But an excellent motivation to get out and train!) All in all, it was a very successful trip to Portland…

 

Poor boy…

Part of today’s workout agenda was a short run in my parent’s neighborhood. The boy was planning to join me for part of it and then run a bit more on his own. But some swearing from the family room told me the plan might be in jeopardy. I came in to find T angrily holding up his running shoes. Or rather, one of his running shoes and a second different older running shoe that he’d been using as a “walking around” shoe.

Since he was very clearly upset about it, I tried really, really hard not to laugh. And failed. So, I tried to laugh quietly. (The part that made it impossible not to laugh is the fact that this is the third time T has either forgotten his shoes, or their insoles or some variation thereof.) Then my mom came into the conversation and tried to come up with logical ways this could have happened (“Was it dark? Was it early in the morning?”) The problem was, none of these were the case, so the funnier it became. Poor T…

But he sucked it up, and wore the mis-matched shoes on our run. Here he is, ready to rock and roll:

Just in case you’re feeling sad for poor T getting mocked on my blog, we went and got him some new running shoes later in the evening. (He badly needed them and there’s no sales tax in Oregon, which is like getting an extra 10% off… ) So, here are some happier pictures of T:

Adventures in badassery

My friend M is currently doing her version of the Ironman. She’s getting a beautiful half-sleeve tattoo from an amazing artist down in Portland. It’s a design that involves three to four different visits, so we’re taking turns keeping her company. Visit number one was a few weeks ago and was J’s turn. I was pleased to go along for visit number two, it’s been a while since we’ve had a good old-fashioned girl’s road trip. My primary function was going to be to entertain M for the hours she had to sit in the chair, so there was much joking that we shouldn’t talk on the drive down lest we used up all of our conversational topics, but naturally that didn’t happen…

The appointment was on a Saturday evening, so we planned to stay the night and then drive home in the morning. M had booked a room at the Kennedy School, which was the perfect low-key place to stay in Portland and I’d always wanted to stay there but had never had occasion. We got into town a few hours before her appointment, so we dropped our bags off at the room and rested for a little while. We were in the “Crooked Room” which featured the nursery rhyme about “the crooked man who ran a crooked mile, etc.) It was the perfect room for some Hipstamatic action:

Headboard:

The tattoo shop was in my old SE Portland neighborhood, so we headed over to grab some food and peruse a few stores. We picked up some fish-shaped sandwiches at No Fish Go Fish (who should really consider a Seattle location, just sayin’… ) Then it was time for the big dance. M was getting nervous because her last session hadn’t hurt nearly as much as expected and maybe this one was the one that was going to. The tattoo shop was amazingly rad:

There was interesting artwork and little collections of objects grouped together on the walls. There were even wood-burned designs on the side of the entry-way’s counter:

It was a very interesting, creative space. Clae, that tattoo artist was very different than I’d expected. He was very laid-back and calm (both excellent qualities in a tattoo artist) but M & J had described him as quiet and focused on the job at hand. Maybe it was the heady combo of M and I, but he was very chatty and playful. It was amazing to watch him work. I couldn’t draw/shade half as well on a flat piece of paper with a pencil, let alone with flowing ink on someone’s arm!

Here’s M pretending to be terrified, while we waited for Clae to get set-up:

Clae at work:

And contrary to her fears, this session hurt even less than the last, so M is either the world’s biggest bad-ass or Clae is just that talented. (Probably both.) Tattooing is an art-form I hadn’t given much thought about, so it was amazing to get to watch the process. I still don’t want one, but I was glad to be part of the journey for M.

Afterward, we grabbed some dinner nearby and then crashed back at the hotel. The next morning, I had to capture a few more shots of the Kennedy School, especially the empty hallway outside the movie theatre:

There was a mason jar in our room that we could have filled with beer for a reasonable fee, so we thought it would be nice to bring the boys back some McMenamins beer. Unfortunately, we didn’t count on the world’s slowest waitress helping us, so the jar ended up taking twenty minutes to get filled. (We dubbed it “the World’s Greatest Beer” and vowed that the boys would love and appreciate every sip.) It made this sign over the bar particularly appropriate:

Though both M & I have zero tolerance for idiots, somehow when we encounter them together it becomes hilarious more than infuriating. Had either of us been there with a husband, we’d probably be raving all the way to the car about throwing the mason jar across the bar, but instead we were laughing about the idiocy of the situation and calculating the cost of the beer based on our hourly rates. It’s sort of like two negatives making a positive (look at me, using a mathematical analogy. It must be the effects of sleeping in a former elementary school… ) And just like that, it was time to hit the road home to Seattle.

A Portland wedding

Back when we lived in Portland, we lived next to this really cool guy named Jeremy. We’d just moved to Portland from New York and he’d grown up in Manhattan. At the time, we only had one dog (Smokey Joe) and he had Jack – a high energy mixed breed that loved to chase birds as they flew through the air. The two dogs got along great and we got to be good friends with Jeremy. We’d watch each other’s dogs and go for runs/hikes and what-not. Eventually, Jeremy bought a house and moved across town but we kept in touch.

This weekend, Jeremy got married to a lovely girl and we were invited to the wedding. I’d always been hoping to see Jeremy meet the right girl, so I was delighted to attend. Plus, next weekend is my sister’s wedding, so I’d get to do a dry-run of my outfit.  We drove down the morning of the wedding and I was a little nervous about the weather for the outdoor wedding, but by the afternoon it was absolutely perfect.

The ceremony was in a gorgeous park in North Portland, with a rose garden and a pretty fountain. Because I’m still in the throes of Hipstamatic addiction, all of the pictures are shot with that app on the iPhone. Here’s the park:

(The ceremony took place in front of that gazebo in the background.) You know you’re in Portland because there’s a bicycle nearby:

Jack was the ring-bearer:

I didn’t get any good shots of the actual ceremony, but it was very sweet. The bride wore a simple dress that had a hint of vintage to it. I also liked her low-key bouquet:

The reception was at the Ecotrust building, which is a really cool green space in NW Portland.  They did a cool thing for place cards, each couple was given a little card that looked like a restaurant order ticket and then they had to match it to a local restaurant’s menu that was part of the centerpiece of each table:

The centerpieces themselves were beautiful dahlias:

Our table turned out to be full of other folks who’d driven down from Seattle. We were the only ones that didn’t have kids (the three couples had eight kids between them!) but we still managed to have some good conversations. The food was delicious and there was plenty of good wine and beer to go with it. Afterward, dessert was served on the roof deck:

It was a very Portland wedding: laid-back with great food and drink. Many congratulations to the happy couple, they certainly kicked off their marriage in great style! Hopefully, next week’s wedding will be as much fun…

Rocking the Shamrock 15k

So, the last time I did this race it was two years ago and the only real preparation I had was one really crappy long run. I figured that I would definitely be able to do better this time and I really wanted to do a slightly longer race without taking on a half-marathon. Plus, I have fond memories of this race, despite never having a particularly good showing. Before I realized that Daylight Savings Time would be starting the night before the race, I was also looking forward to not having to get up so damn early since we could walk to the start from the hotel. So much for that plan!

Even with the earlier wake up time, we still had plenty of time to grab coffee, get changed and have a leisurely walk down to the start line. There were crazy amounts of people around:

And some very special fashion choices:

A quick self portrait of M & I:

and then a better one, taken by M:

Then it was time for me to line up and M to negotiate the maze of lining up 15k-ers and finishing 5k-ers, not an easy feat! After the most depressing hymn sung by a local high school choir and a total cluster at the start line when they had to have the 5k-ers finishing chute overlap the start line of the 15k because an emergency vehicle needed to be on the 5k course. This led to them sending us off by pace group, which resulted in a lot of stop/starting. The only nice result of all of that confusion was that this was the first race I’ve ever done where I could run right from the start line, which was very nice. It was very hard, but I tried to ignore the legions of runners passing me and take the first mile very conservatively. (Thank you, Jon Cane for drilling this into my head… )

Pacing is really important in this race – the first mile has a long gradual uphill, followed by four miles of rolling hills of varying amounts of steepness. Because my other goal for the race was to not take any walk breaks unless absolutely necessary, I wanted to pace the first third very conservatively, hang tough for the middle third and then run as fast as I could for the last third.

I did really well the first two thirds, taking it nice and easy and not letting the hills take too much energy. Meanwhile, all around me were people going balls out and sprinting up the hills. It was crazy! And I’m in the 9-10 min/mile pace group, so it’s not like it’s a lot of faster runners who are having to weave through the ranks. In sharp contrast to last time, I was part of a pack for the whole race, which was weird and nice at the same time.

Finally, I saw the turn that brought us back toward town, signaling the start of the downhill section. It was time to kick it up a notch! I let my legs relax and picked up the pace. I got to pass tons of the people who flew past me at the beginning or on the hills, which was very enjoyable. I felt really good until mile 8, then still pretty good until mile 9 and then I was really ready to be done. The last .3 was me just trying not to think about the things that hurt and once I could see the finish line, I just locked eyes on it and ran as hard as I could. It hurt, but I figured the faster I went, the sooner it would be over. My final time was 1:42:28, exactly 11 minute mile pace, which is a full minute per mile faster than last time. That made me very happy. It’s always nice to see improvement.

After the race, I met up with M and we headed back to the hotel for a quick ice bath/shower and to checkout. M was nice enough to snap a few pics of me next to my favorite mannequins:

West siiiiide!

Afterward, we headed to Jam for breakfast. The food was delicious, but the ridiculously long wait was not. Then it was time to hit the road back home. We both agreed that while the weekend was fun, it was nice to be back home.

PDX pics

Today was pretty much our main day to spend in Portland, since tomorrow was the race and the drive home. We had a ton of stuff we wanted to do, so we were up pretty early and out the door. Since breakfast is the most important meal of the day, we started with St. Honoré. (Even though I love Besalu and it fulfills my french pastry needs very well, I have a soft spot in my heart for St. Honoré. I have such fond memories of our Forest Park run tradition of stopping there afterward) Here’s a little tribute to the buttery goodness:

Afterward, we headed to the east side of town for a little shopping and race packet pick up. Back when I lived in Portland, I’d done some running shoe testing for a woman who coordinates product testing for Runners World. She does a big sale once a year to get rid of all of the extra stuff she accumulates in her line of work and fortunately, I’m still on her e-mail list. I usually read about these sales and lament that I can’t go, but this year it timed out perfectly. So, first stop was this sale where I scored some cute Karhu running shoes, a blue fleece hoody, some nutrirional products and a dog leash that snaps on to a running belt. Score! (M was good and passed on an awesome pair of rain pants – she is so disciplined.)

Afterward, it was on to packet pickup. With 21,000 people signed up for the various races tomorrow, I was anticipating having to wait. What I was not anticipating was having that wait be in the traffic jam turning left and getting into the parking garage. The actual parking and picking up of the packet was a cake walk. Sadly, registration was closed so M was officially out of the 5k. Once the cute race shirt was spotted, I think she’d have definitely signed up otherwise. We were both hungry, so we headed to the NW for lunch and some shopping.

On the way back to the hotel, we wandered through this little square downtown. It used to be a giant construction-filled hole, so it was nice to see it completed. It had this nice fountain area:

Upon closer examination, the sign gave the formerly innocuous caution tape new meaning. (I particularly like the third sentence. Shudder.) So, so, very wrong…

We grabbed a little cookie/soda action from the food court of the mall near our hotel and headed back to our room for a little rest before our evening out. I snapped these shots of the cool building across the street – I love how the old type looks carved into the stone:

After a little rest, we got dressed for dinner and walked over to the Pearl District for dinner at Andina. (After all of the money we saved on parking, we figured we could splurge on a fancy dinner.) On the way, we stopped at the Ace Hotel because we’d heard it was cool inside. Which is true:

Yours truly, posing tourist style in the lobby:

There was a photo booth in the lobby, which M & I couldn’t resist. I’ll scan a copy and post it soon, but in the mean time here’s a sneak peak courtesy of M:

It wasn’t clear when it was going to take the initial picture, since it basically just started flashing lights at us, so the first one is my favorite. But all of them are awesome. I love photo booths – they are rad. I also loved this very Portland style of advertising:

Across from the Ace was this very cool old billboard that I’ve seen numerous times, but either never had my camera with me or had a chance to take a picture:

Down the street further, advertising a restaurant that T’s grandfather used to own, a giant inflatable crab/crawfish over Jake’s Crawfish:

Not the most appetizing thing to have over your restaurant – especially since the wind would blow the legs around. Andina, of course, was delicious. Afterward, we hit up Powells for some post-dinner browsing. I do miss that awesome book store, it’s pretty fantastic. Then it was back to the hotel and early to bed for daylight savings time/race day tomorrow.

To the Nines

Girls Weekend 2010 would be staying at The Nines, which is a swanky hotel right in downtown Portland.

Needless to say, it was far fancier than our budget would have allowed otherwise, so many thanks to M’s husband J, who generously donated some of his Starwood points to our adventure. There’s something about a hip, boutique hotel in Portland that is sort of surreal – old woman in cat sweater and bright yellow Crocs walking into the techno-playing lobby surreal. All that aside, it was awesome to get to stay in such a pretty and “designy” space. (This environment also spurred a ton of Zoolander quotes, so be prepared.)

M & I quickly checked in and moved our car to a reasonably priced garage. (btw, The Nines – 32.00 a night for parking is RIDICULOUS in Portland, OR. Please make a note of it.) Afterward, we returned to the hotel to more thoroughly ooh and ahh over our room and the public spaces in the lobby. I didn’t get too many pictures of the room itself, but luckily I travel with a photographer, who is kind enough to contribute her work to this blog, so here are a few, courtesy of M:

I did take a ton of pictures of the public spaces. Starting with the chair outside of the elevator:

Right? And here’s the atrium behind the check-in desk:

It had all of these nice little groupings of seating that I really liked:

And these adorable vases: (M proclaimed them to be “totally Jonathan Adler.” This is apparently who we are now. Those design people.)

The lobby was also inexplicably full of naked mannequins (apparently naked mannequins are so hot right now!):

After a little bit of lounging, we headed over to my old stomping grounds in the Southeast to poke around the shops on Hawthorne and eat at Pok Pok. M was very skeptical of the heavenly Fish Sauce Wings, but after tasting a bite concurred that they are pretty much the most awesome food ever. It must be the crack that they inject them with or something. (Actually based on the sheer number of M’s food rules these violate, it really is the only logical explanation… ) We were also treated to some highly inappropriate dinner conversation courtesy of the table next to us. (A helpful hint: when sitting in a restaurant where the tables are a foot and a half apart, it might not be the time to share the details of all of your therapy sessions, I’m just sayin’… )

When we got back to the hotel room, we were “treated” to cheezy light jazz on the radio, the lights turned low, ice in the ice-bucket and our robes laid on the bed. So romantic…

Sorry, Nines but it’s not *that* kind of girls weekend!

My farewell tour

Sorry I’ve neglected the blog for a while. This last week was a whirlwind of social activity as I prepared to leave Portland for the new job in Seattle. Because I’m a sap, I’d agreed to work pretty much every day this week, including night shifts on Monday and Tuesday nights and an Illustrator class on Monday/Tuesday and Thursday/Friday. It made for a very busy week at work.

In addition to all of that, we had quite the social calendar. This was somewhat ironic, given that one of my biggest grievances about our life here in Portland was our lack of friends. But apparently, we just needed to leave. Here’s the breakdown:

Tuesday: I had coffee in the afternoon with my friend Hat from school and got caught up with her doings.

Wednesday: The evening was spent finally doing something social with some of my friends from work. We went to a really cool place in SW Portland called the Goose Hollow Tavern. It has a great porch/outdoor area, so we had beer and food and lots of great conversation. The subtitle for the evening was “why didn’t we do this sooner?”

Thursday: That night was spent seeing Wall-E with my co-workers for a Graphics Department tradition of Movie Nights. (We did these every so often, in memory of a former co-worker who died of a heart attack last year.) It ended up being most of my favorite people in the department (and more importantly, my least favorite – the idiot boss wasn’t able to attend.) T joined us for the festivities and we had a good time. I wasn’t planning to run out and see this movie in the theatre, but I really enjoyed it.

Friday: We had a graphics department farewell lunch in my honor with everyone, including the head of our department. We had a really nice lunch with some lively conversation. The gang made me an awesome card, (complete with haiku’s about life at our job) a gift card for a bunch of different restaurants and some cash – all wrapped in Tour de France ‘wrapping paper’. I was very touched, but managed not to cry. After work, it was off to Pok Pok to meet T’s former co-worker/friend of ours, Luke. I love this restaurant so much, it’s a must visit when you’re in Portland. We sat outdoors, had delicious food (and cocktails) and talked for hours, it was a great way to end the week.

Saturday: We spent the morning out at Hagg Lake cheering on our friend Luke (yes, the same one as last night) who was doing the bike leg of a relay for a sprint triathlon. He was riding his sweet new Vanilla bike. (I’ll post pictures of it later – beautiful bike.) Luke’s a bike guy (if you didn’t guess from the fancy custom bike) and this was his first foray into triathlon. I gave him pointers last night and it was fun to cheer him on. My friend Erika was manning her booth at the event, so we got to chat with her for a bit. It was really hot, so I didn’t envy her for having to be out working in that weather.

Then it was time to head to work for my official last day. It was really hard to say good-bye to everyone, especially the small group of folks I work with on Saturdays. They were very sweet and brought in sparkling cider and baked goods. I spent most of my day socializing and wrapping up my last projects. It was hard to remember that I wouldn’t be coming back on Tuesday and that I had to clean out my desk and make sure I had everything. By the end of the evening, I was a bit of a mess emotionally – sad at saying good-bye, excited and nervous about my upcoming job, etc. So, T and I decided to take in a silly summer movie – Hancock. We invited my mom along and had a nice time. The movie was just okay, but I really like Will Smith and Jason Bateman and it was funny and entertaining, definitely a rental.

The big downside to my week of being a social butterfly is that I had absolutely no time to help with packing and sorting, so I felt really guilty on Sunday when it was time to hit the road and leave T behind. But it was time to start the next chapter of our lives: Seattle, Part Two.

The big 3-8

So it’s my birthday today, I’m now officially 38 years old. Birthdays are always weird, suddenly you’re a year older but you don’t really feel any different. When I was little I always expected to feel totally different – now I’m 8 and things are really going to change, but not so much. It’s a pretty low-key birthday, being a Thursday and all. Went to work where our department is reconfiguring the cubicles/desks to accommodate a new department moving into our area. Which basically means total pandemonium for a few hours and not a lot of productivity.

Today on my lunchtime run I was joined by special guest runner T. Running with T is a mixed blessing – it’s great to have the company and I like spending time with him, but he’s way faster than me (even injured) and is way too chipper, which is annoying. (I REALLY miss my old running partner who frequently reads this blog – you know who you are and you need to get back to running!) The Rose Festival is starting this weekend, so they had all of the carnival rides set up along the Waterfront and as we were running there were some neat boats coming into town on the river. (Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics, I didn’t think to bring my camera…) Here they are approaching us as we’re on the Steel Bridge:

Then after we turned around and headed back, we basically kept pace with them:

And then further on heading into town there was one of those water-spraying boats (I don’t know what they’re officially called… ) I haven’t seen one since we left New York – I think they are so cool.

It was nice to have cool new stuff to look at while running on my usual route. T and I parted ways at the Hawthorne Bridge, because he’d parked on the east side of the river. As I was running back, one of the old ships shot off a cannon, which reverberated off of the buildings and sounded like an explosion happening downtown. It startled the crap out of me and a woman walking by says “It’s a cannon.” like that’s the most natural thing in the world. Gotta love Oregonians…

Tonight the birthday festivities continue with dinner with my parents and T at the Claim Jumper. I haven’t been there since I lived in Southern California eons ago, so that will be interesting. And thanks to everyone for the happy birthday wishes, always appreciated!

Doing my civic duty

Today I had to go in for Jury Duty. I was grumpy about it for no particular reason. I’m an hourly employee and my work will pay for any time that overlaps (which with my weird hours was going to be a potential hassle) and I just didn’t feel like going. I know, I’m a terrible citizen. And it’s funny because I generally think the judicial system and the legal process is very interesting. I did Mock Trial in high school (and won a prize for it, thank you very much!) and am passably versed in the whole thing.

But at 8:00 in the morning, I dragged my butt into the Multnomah County Courthouse to sit around with about a hundred of my fellow citizens ready to do my part for the judicial system. I must give Multnomah County props, because they have a pretty nice room for everyone to wait in and they do a good job of keeping everyone informed of the process. The judge oriented us to how juries are selected and was the first to tell us that it wasn’t personal if we didn’t get selected (he was the first of many people to tell us this, apparently more than a few people take not being selected as a personal affront – which I find hilarious given how most people feel about jury duty generally… )

I sat around for a few hours reading my book before getting called for a potential case. We had to answer a series of questions about ourselves that were written on a whiteboard and then the lawyers asked more specific follow-up questions. It was a very different process than the last time I’d been called back in the Bay Area, but that was for a murder trial that was anticipated to last at least three months and this was a one-day “harassment” and destruction of property case, so the stakes were a little lower. They only took six out of the fifteen of us and I wasn’t one of them. I was totally hurt, I mean why didn’t they want me? (kidding!)

The weirdest part was the fact that the defendant was in the room during the whole selection process and then again during our break while the lawyers and the judge were deliberating. I kept wondering what he thought of our responses to some of the questions and the type of conversation during the break. There’s such a wide range of people that are called for jury duty. I wonder if that’s a comfort or a concern when you’re on the other side.

After about fifteen minutes of being back in the waiting room, they announced that they had filled all of the juries that they were going to need for the day and we were free to go, which was pretty sweet. I had time to eat some lunch, go to the gym for some weight training and 30 minutes of elliptical (I was supposed to run, but just didn’t have the inclination – I’ll make up for it tomorrow.) And then it was off to work for a second late shift tonight to cover for someone on vacation.

Just another exciting day in my life…