We signed up for the Portland (quarter) century next weekend (Patrick can, of course, handle the full century, but he's going to keep me company instead). Since I haven't been getting much exercise (other than lifting boxes and weeding) since we moved, I decided to go on a bike ride first thing this morning. I planned it to be about 9 miles, to simulate my old bike commute to work. I biked over to the entrance to the Springwater Corridor at Division, and then I rode south along the river. It was pretty cool--it was totally industrial to the right and there were train tracks to the left, but the path was lined with all this lush greenery, like wild fennel and Queen Anne's lace. It was peaceful, actually. Further south, things became less industrial near Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge and Oaks Amusement Park (ooh, a roller rink with a pipe organ!). It had been misty all morning, but all of a sudden, it was not only misty, but also thundering and lightning. I was a little nervous being in an open area, just me and my bike, but nothing bad happened.

I continued onward, traveling east into Sellwood, when fat drops of water started falling out of the sky, in the middle of summer! That doesn't happen in California. I was exactly halfway through my ride when the rain started, so the only thing to do was keep riding (without fenders or a jacket--I'll have to be more prepared next time).

I exited the trail at 37th and then rode up 27th/28th to 26th (past the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden, which sounds like a nice place to visit someday), through some industrial warehousey areas, and back home. Patrick was still home when I got back, trying to figure out where he had packed his fenders (he was committed to biking to work, despite the thunder and rain). I was feeling a little grimy, but little did I know that the entire back of my shirt was covered in mud splatters. It was quite a sight. I guess I need to get some fenders.

I took a nice warm shower and then settled in for my first day of working from home. It went pretty well, though I lost internet connectivity for an hour around 10am, probably due to the crappy weather. I had an enjoyable lunch--a sandwich with turkey pastrami and goat cheese on seedy bread, plus pasta salad and cherries. Later I had some yogurt with peaches and blueberries for a snack. It's nice to have our entire kitchen just downstairs from my office! It's also a little lonely, but at least I'll get to go back to CA and work around people once a month.

Speaking of my California visits, I bought my plane tickets and made hotel reservations for my September trip. I'm going to be staying at the Hotel California in Palo Alto. It seems perfect--it's relatively inexpensive, guests can use the kitchen, it's just down the street from the Sunday farmers' market and a fancy grocery store, and it's a couple blocks from the Caltrain station. I can buy real food to eat at the beginning of each week and take the train/shuttle to work like I did in Menlo Park, so I won't need to rent a car. Awesome!

P.S. Patches has been working hard at endearing herself (or possibly himself) to us. She hangs around outside our house all the time and meows plaintively outside our kitchen door after we go inside. She was waiting for me outside our basement door when I got back from my ride this morning. And she only poops on our lawn occasionally. She seems hungry, though Patrick pointed out that if she's pooping, she must be getting food somewhere. Still, I suggested that maybe we should lift the ban on feeding Patches. Patrick is willing to consider it, but if we feed her, we also have to take her to a vet and get her spayed/neutered and get some flea prevention, since she's an itchy kitty. It would be like we have a cat or something! But an outdoor cat, which seems easier (but also less rewarding) than an indoor cat. We'll have to spend more time thinking about it. I don't think Patches will waste away anytime soon, but I bet she'd appreciate some food and a warm towel-lined basket on our porch to sleep in!

posted by caitlin on Monday, Aug 18, 2008 at 8:56pm * comments [0]

Whoa, dude--we just met our next door neighbors, and not only are they young and cool--they are also the owners of Tart (the frozen yogurt shop on Division that we visited earlier this week)! It's like we're living next to celebrities. That's totally awesome :) Now I'll definitely visit Tart regularly (next time I think I'll go for chocolate frozen yogurt with peanut butter chips). Stuart, the husband, made me feel better about being from California. He said that although native Oregonians like to complain about Californians, you won't meet too many Oregonians because most Portlanders are from elsewhere. Plus it is the non-natives moving in that are making Portland cool and progressive. That was sweet of him to say. He actually wanted to know why we left San Francisco; he likes it there.

We only have one next door neighbor left to meet--the people in the house behind us. It was for sale around the same time as ours, so they may not have moved in yet.

In other exciting news, the ancient washer and dryer in the basement are functional, and we now have clean clothes. I was worried the washer would spew soapy water all over the basement, but it didn't. Phew!

It has cooled down somewhat today, which is great. Yesterday was really hot, and we spent most of it out and about in SE Portland. It was a very sweaty day.

I had signed up for a 2-hour-long class at the Architectural Heritage Center about researching old houses, so I attended that while Patrick visited various bike stores in the area (he got an awesome bucket for the back of his bike, which came in handy later in the day for helmet storage). Patrick guessed that I would be the youngest person in the class, and it did have its share of older women, but there were other people around my age there--some with tattoos! We learned about a bunch of good resources for finding out who lived in our house and what it was originally like. I'm excited to do some research, though I don't know where that will fall in terms of priority, given all the work we want to do around the house and yard. It will require that I get a Multnomah County Library card, which is exciting not only because it's a library card, but also because this particular library was mentioned in a Decemberists song!

We rode our bikes to my class, and Patrick showed me how to lock my front wheel to my back wheel for extra protection. I feel so city savvy now :)

Next we biked to one of the two Portland Office Furniture warehouses to look for a desk for my office, but nothing seemed right. We made a quick stop at Clever Cycles, which was totally cute and had tons of beautiful bikes and bike accessories. Amazingly, we left without buying anything.

We parked our bikes near the hardware store on Hawthorne and then hiked the rest of the way to 30th, to the start of the Hawthorne Street Fair. We grabbed lunch at Big Daddy's BBQ. Our waitress there was really sweet. The food was fine, but not the best I've had--the sweet tea was a little too sweet, the brisket was a little fatty, and the sweet potatoes fries were a little overcooked. Patrick's fried okra was yummy though. I'd eat there again unless we can find a better BBQ place nearby.

We walked along Hawthorne in the blazing sun, ducking into vintage shops to cool down. I was hoping to find furniture for our house, but vintage stores don't seem to go that far back in time. I guess what we need is an antique store, but those are more expensive...

Elsa, the owner of elsa+sam, had written me an email a few days ago inviting me to stop by her shop and say hi during the street fair (she found my website because I linked to her a couple days ago--Google works quickly!). She was really nice, and her store had all sorts of great dishwares. I ended up getting this cute polka-dotted mug (which I intend to use as a vase) made by an artist in Brooklyn. There were also a bunch of cute little bowls in great colors with my favorite things printed on them (e.g., chickens, goats, bikes), but we have enough delicate little bowls right now (a lesson I learned when I had to pack them all for our move). I would definitely return to Elsa's store if I were going to buy a wedding present or housewarming gift (or a little something for myself).

We also stopped at Pastaworks, which had an exciting array of artisan foods (including a nice selection of charcuterie), and which was connected to the equally exciting Powell's Home and Garden annex. We hit the mother lode of bungalow books (now that we own a bungalow, things like bungalow kitchens and exterior paint colors interest me), and I spent a while paging through them until Patrick was totally bored. I also bought The Urban Homestead, which I spent a good chunk of time reading in the evening, and which kept me lying awake in bed, my mind churning with all the exciting things we could do to our garden and garage. That's a dangerously inspiring book!

We grabbed some pearl milk tea at Fat Straw (except they were out of tapioca, so we got custard blocks instead, which weren't half bad), and then we headed back to our bikes, exhausted.

After the weather had cooled down a bit, we got back on our bikes and pedaled over to 28th and Burnside to Ken's Artisan Pizza. We had tried going there on past visits, but they were always closed. But this time they were open, and we got to eat some tasty thin-crust pizza and cured meats. Our waiter was cool too. The ride there was hillier than I'd expected, but it was worth it. Plus it's good exercise.

We're spending today around the house, and tomorrow we start back at work (we were on vacation this past week), which will be weird. When you're in Portland, you're on vacation--that's the rule! I hope I am successful in working from home. I'm excited to have this opportunity.

posted by caitlin on Sunday, Aug 17, 2008 at 12:27pm * comments [0]

It has been hot for the past few days--like record-breaking hot! I'm glad it's not always like this. We have been staying inside during the day, for the most part, and only venturing into the garden in the morning and evening. We have been making progress with the yard work, getting weeds pulled and cutting back overgrown vines. Patches the cat has been keeping us company. Patrick made a rule that we aren't allowed to feed him, but I did bring him some water so he wouldn't get dehydrated.

We have been making small fixes inside the house as well. Among other things, I replaced our broken bathtub plug (replacement parts obtained from a nice old man at DO IT Best hardware on Division), and Patrick has been trying to fix the ceiling fan in my office (it runs, but the blades rub against the body, which makes me nervous that it will fly apart unexpectedly someday).

This afternoon, we braved the heat so that Patrick could visit one of our local bike shops, Seven Corners Cycles. The guy working there was really helpful, and Patrick got some slick tires and a rack for his mountain bike, to use as a utility bike. On our walk home, we stopped at Sip, the vegan juice shack (in a shiny little Airstream trailer) out in front of People's Coop. Patrick got the cantaloupe milkshake, which was delicious. I decided to really get into the spirit of things and ordered the daily green smoothie. Today's smoothie contained spinach, parsley, apple, lemon, ginger, and agave. The ginger gave it some intensity, but it was actually pretty tasty, though I would probably opt for a more conventional milkshake (made with soy ice cream, of course) next time. The girl working at the cart had some trouble remembering my order, but I can't blame her, given that it was 100F out, and she was stuck inside a little metal box in the sun.

I'll leave you with one of the unique features of our house--we have our very own high-volume ketchup pipe in the basement. I think that's a pretty rare feature for a 102-year-old house. Okay, okay, it actually contains air, not ketchup.

(Although getting the house fixed up is going to take a lot of work, we're still both very happy that we own this house and that we're living in Portland. This is going to be great :)

posted by caitlin on Friday, Aug 15, 2008 at 9:32pm * comments [0]

The People's Coop farmers' market, though smaller than Menlo Park's, had a good selection of food, and the vendors were friendly. We got everything you see below, plus lettuce, a beautiful onion, beets, smoked salmon, and yummy garlic and herb goat cheese. Plus we got our knives and pruning shears sharpened (according to his sign, the Edgemaster can also sharpen push mowers, which is good to know, since if we buy any lawn mower, it will be a push mower).

We also joined the coop, which is very exciting! We got a cloth bag, a sticker that says "Love your farmer," and a card that gets us discounts at all sorts of like-minded local businesses around Portland. Plus we can take free yoga classes four times a week and go to meetings about how bad processed sugar is and learn how to do reiki. Okay, so none of the classes are really our style, but I'm still excited to be a member-owner (we own ~1/5000th of the People's Coop).

Today we registered our car in Oregon and got Oregon driver's licenses. The whole process took about 3 hours, but it was relatively painless, and we stopped for pizza at Hot Lips in between DEQ emissions testing and the DMV visit. I had a slice of their spinach, mushroom, and (housemade smoked) bacon pizza and a glass of their blueberry soda (on tap). We like Hot Lips :)

We had to take the driving knowledge test in order to get our licenses, and Patrick got 100%, while I only got 93% (those two questions I missed were tricky!). The lady at the DMV said that I owe him dinner now because he got a higher test score than me. Whatever, I was going to make dinner tonight anyway (pasta with beet greens, smoked salmon, and goat cheese, I think). We're going to be getting Share the Road plates for our car. I'm excited!

We still haven't biked anywhere yet, because it has been so hot during the day. Maybe we'll bike to the hardware store (third visit; we need a screw for one of the ceiling fans and a hose splitter) later today when it has cooled down.

posted by caitlin on Thursday, Aug 14, 2008 at 3:01pm * comments [0]

Yesterday evening and this morning we spent a good chunk of time in the yard, pulling weeds and pruning our plants. It's satisfying work. I have been working on deadheading our two rose bushes, which definitely needed some attention. One of the bushes is alongside the house, and it was a little scary pruning it, because there's a five foot drop to the sidewalk below (our house is raised, which I like for the most part, but it does make tending to the side yard a little hairy). Maybe I should wear a helmet next time I'm up there. Here I am in my kerchief, like a good first-time homeowner.

I have been enjoying the deadheading process. Now we have a bunch of rose hips, but I don't think I'll make any tea with them, since I don't know if they've been sprayed with anything. Plus I don't think I particularly enjoy the flavor of rose hips in tea, or if these are the right kind of rose hips to use in tea.

When it got too hot to do yard work, we walked to the hardware store again (I'm sure there will be many trips in the next few months). Patrick is so knowledgeable about house-related things like plumbing and electricity; I'm lucky to have him around :)

For lunch we got some falafel from the guy at the Fat Kitty falafel stand. He talked to us about the Olympics and George Bush while our falafel patties fried. I haven't had falafel in a long time, and this hit the spot. We followed it up with frozen custard from the newly opened Tart, a few doors down (and only a couple blocks from our house). I had just been lamenting the fact that there weren't any good ice cream places in our neighborhood, but I had forgotten about Tart (it wasn't open yet last time we were here). It's comforting to see that the new frozen yogurt craze has already made it to Portland. They also have frozen custard (though since I've never had frozen custard before, I'm not sure how authentic it is). This time around, I got a chocolate-vanilla frozen custard swirl topped with Heath bar crunch and caramel sauce (the sauces are free, and they have honey, caramel, white chocolate, and chocolate). Like one of the commenters on Yelp, I don't think it's quite as good as Fraiche in Palo Alto, but I'm still happy to have it nearby.

We're going to walk over to our new farmers' market in a little bit. I'm excited! I get the impression it may be smaller than the Menlo Park market, but I'm sure it'll still be exciting!

posted by caitlin on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2008 at 2:09pm * comments [0]