Exploring

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Walked to the Tao of Tea for a late lunch yesterday and slowly sipped the afternoon, Frozen Summit and chai. Our wander home found us at the Bagdad with just enough time to see the 3:30 showing of Her. We loved the gorgeousness of it, the architecture and moving spaces, the well captured feeling of falling in love, of being in love, of friendship, of life at its best and brightest. Then a chilly twilight walk, ungloved hands too cold to hold, save at the end, near enough to home that it no longer mattered.

Rest in Peace, Philip Seymour Hoffman. You were one of the best.

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Good Friday afternoon to you, dear reader! How are you? I’ve got a belly full of dried cherries and am thusly content. Have I ever told you that cherries are my favorite fruit? Well, here we are again if I have. Yup,yup.

This was yesterday, happily eating a late lunch at The Sudra, just me and the kind and lovely-eyed guy behind the counter, which is how I like it. The sun was bright, the music was right, and the food topped it all (the small Chickpea Cutlet plate, vegan AND delicious). I could have stayed all afternoon, but I had things to do, itches to scratch.

First of which was calling my dad to wish him happy birthday! We rambled and ambled over a myriad of topics (books. history. movies. space travel), and oddly enough, spoke 1:16! On 1.16! Insert weeeird sound effect here.

I then grabbed my latest book, Philip K. Dick’s collected stories, The King of the Elves, intending to spend time before I picked the hubster up for date night. I parked and locked the car, but only made it ten feet before a little voice said, “Take pictures instead.” So I started for the West Hills to chase the light. I made it twenty blocks and was enveloped by a swift moving fog. There went that idea!

And then, I thought, the Pittock Mansion!

I arrived in time for sunset and a cinematic sweeping of fog.

The city below

utterly

and completely

shrouded!

Magic!

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Hello, and happy Monday to you!

I’m gonna make this lickety-split quick because I need to exercise, specifically push-ups with Shiva Rea for my challenge.

If you are a local and like the arts, more specifically, modern dance, please do yourself a ginormous favor and buy tickets to POV Dance 3×3! I went last weekend and was dazzled, truly. It was unlike anything I have ever seen, beautiful and evocative, like a dream:

You converge with other people, small groups of them. It’s a modern space in an old building, exposed brick and beams. There is a film playing, of dancers using the very walls that surround you. Suddenly you realize the dancers are there, behind you, next to you, so close you can hear the slap of feet and sigh of exertion and movement. You share a moment, eye to eye. They use their bodies to climb walls and banisters. They tangle, fly, slither. It is glorious, exquisite. They beckon you to follow, down dimly lit hallways, up stairs, around corners. More dancers appear. They change partners, seamlessly, beautifully. The air is charged with wonder, music, and their ceaseless dance. It’s is a mystery and a delight.

Here’s a little preview, too.

I liked it so much that I am going back with the hubster. Maybe we will see you there!

 

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Happy Friday, peeps! That’s my darlin’ Maren, in town for holiday festivities. We made a pilgrimage to the Portland Art Museum (as is our nature), walked, talked, ate, and gave satisfyingly big squeezy hugs. It is marvelous to have friends. She is conducting a Trimpin kinetic sculpture that made the most sensational sounds. It was the cause of many a smile, too, and rightly so.

detail of This Land is Our Land

Abbie Miller

She uses a single 100 foot zipper. Wowie!

detail of PMU #25

Roxy Paine

Follow this link to see how another work in the series was made.

Oh bother, I forgot to get the artist info on this sculpture, anyone know? The mobile, however, is a Calder.

I didn’t get the name of this one either, silly bones.

This beauty, however, I can say with 99.5% certainty is a Mercedes 300, circa the 1950s. Shiny!

Hello. We were happy, not only because we were together, but had just gorged on homemade biscuits and gravy, which were fab. I had food disappointment earlier, at what I thought was a promising new diner near our house. The biscuits were hard, and though the gravy was called mushroom, there were, no exaggeration, three tiny slivers of fungi in the whole mess of gravy. Sad face. So we made up for it, and how! The purdiest, flakiest, yummiest, mile high biscuits (a riff on this recipe) bathed in gravy swimming with mushrooms and country sausage. I took not one photo, just to prove that I don’t actually have a camera appendage. Honest.

 

Off for a long weekend retreat, planned when I thought a lack of sun would be weighing down on us. Happy to be wrong, we left sunny Portland for sunny Bend.

Mount Hood

Three Fingered Jack

Mount Jefferson

Fishermen on the Deschutes

Warm Springs

Railroad Bridge over the Crooked River at Peter Skene Ogden Viewpoint

Juniper Country

Gotta love a palindrome!

In Bend now, at the Old Mill District

The Hubster’s favorite.

Margarita and super fabulous Relleno at Hola!

We stayed at Brasada Ranch. Lovely and picturesque, it was everything we could have asked for. This was the awe-inspiring view from our room, with me waking early to watch the sun light the Sisters each morning.

South

I have never seen so many Robins! They are VERY keen on juniper berries.

gnarled old juniper

Fake smile and, quite possibly, the best pimento cheese ever at Drake. They have pretty snazzy cocktails, tip-top service, and a bad-ass roasted trout, too.

 

Homeward bound through fog-laden Prineville.

Mount Hood, again – jiggity-jig!

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