this vacation brought to you by the letters h and s and the number 2

click to see full photo galleryGUESS WHAT YOU GUYS WE HAVE BEEN ON VACATION AHA. We were being all sneaky.

Actually, would've very much liked to be posting whilst on vacation, because welcome to the 21st century and all, but since scary internet predators love posts that basically say HELLO WE ARE GONE FROM THE HOUSE PLEASE ROB US NAO THX, this is why we can't have nice things. Scary internet predators ruin it for everybody, you guys. Haters be hatin', yo.

So instead, we have had to save up our many days of vacation squeeage for one ginormous post. (We actually returned yesterday -- TO THE SURFACE OF THE SUN I MIGHT ADD -- but this post is so ginormous that it took us a day and a half to get it posted.) Think you can handle it? I don't know, the squeeage here is pretty heart-explodey, you may want to consult with your physician first....

Okay, so now that all the legal clappity-trappity is out of the way -- HELLO INTERNETS WE ARE BACK FROM MANY DAYS OF VACATION AND FUN TIMES. This is actually quite an accomplishment, on many levels and for more than the obvious reason. (That reason being, of course, that the fact that we ever return from time spent at the Oregon coast is a testament to our superhuman skillz of being responsible adults.) The less obvious reason -- at least to most of you -- is that we took the cats with us.

Put the phone down -- you do not need to call the mental health professionals for information on how to have us involuntarily committed.

See, Sally gets two weeks of paid vacation per year and due to the school schedule, they're fixed by the school calendar, so it's a week around the holidays and a week sometime in late June/early July. We take the opportunity during both of these vacation periods to spend at least 4 days at Oceanside, longer if we can. This year, his summer vacation just happened to begin during the 4th of July weekend, and so we were all WOOT WOOT 4TH OF JULY AT THE OREGON COAST BITCHEZ.

What we failed to take into account was how the holiday weekend would affect the availability of our primary and backup pet & housesitters. Whoops. This was a problem entirely of our own making, since we didn't really realize it until a month before, when availability for later in the week was of course gone so we couldn't move our reservations, and cancelling would mean forfeiting our holiday weekend reservation deposit.

So by this point last month, it was looking increasingly grim for our heroes. But! When Sally called the place we usually stay to see about possibly moving our reserved days, Sherry (one of the owners of the place; they know us by name and give us priority reservations because we stay so often) reminded him that they're a pet-friendly place, and that the cabin we already had reserved was one of the "pets allowed" cabins. For a nominal fee and a refundable damage deposit, we could bring the cats with us. And thus, faced with bringing the cats with us or not going at all, we opted to bring them with us. See, I told you: it wasn't craziness, it was desperation. Not the same thing. Same zip code, though.

click to see full photo galleryWe did not choose this course without considerable trepidation, however. Hobbes' cystitis has increasingly become an issue in the last year, and any change in routine has resulted in many frustrating messes to deal with, not to mention the potential of expensive vet visits and medications. Neither of them travels well and the cabin, which is very small for two people, would be close quarters indeed for two people and two high strung cats. We figured we'd just prepare as best we could and make the best of it, no matter what happened. At least we'd still get to go to the coast. This is the "Everything's Better At The Beach" theory of problem-solving.

We brought extra linens and our own pillows, hoping that using familiar-smelling bedding would prevent them from wanting to mark it, and of course their food and cat box and all of that. We brought a few of their favorite toys, some catnip, the Feliway diffuser and some Feliway spray, and we got a prescription from the vet for a mild sedative to help with the car trip and transition to new surroundings.

Our plan was to leave as soon as we could after Sally got home Friday night. Friday night, however, saw both of us having worked an especially long day, ending an especially long work week, with little sleep. These are not ideal conditions for trekking to the coast with four days' worth of your own crap and two demon hellbeasts.

I'd given the kitties their sedative a few hours before, but rather than making it easier to gather everything and pack before Sally got home, it made it infinitely harder. They were both loopy within about 30 minutes of taking the sedative, and completely wobbly and disoriented, but while Hobbes was content to just lay on his cushion and mellow out (at first), Smaug wasn't having it. She kept wanting to jump up on things or suddenly dash off madly to no place in particular, but with the approximate agility of a dog on roller skates. She kept tripping over things, including her own feet, and missing whatever she was trying to jump onto and falling backwards, then skitter/wobbling into a nearby wall, doorjamb, table leg, etc., all the while pitifully crying, "Aroo? Aroo?" I felt simultaneously guilty, sympathetic, and exhaustedly amused -- c'mon, you wouldn't laugh at that? I call bullshit.

So I spent a great deal of time just trying to keep her from accidentally breaking her neck, and then Hobbes freaked out about an hour after she started and suddenly I couldn't keep him out of anything. When Sally called to see how it was going, I'm sure he could hear the hysteria in my voice; I'm still kind of astounded he came home at all, knowing what might be waiting for him there.

But come home he did, and we managed to get them crated (this is a two person job in the best of circumstances) so we could get on with the business of packing and getting out the door. Our plan had been that I would already have everything packed so we could leave as soon as he got home, but thanks to Stoned Cat Theater, we were a good two hours later than planned. We got out of town at a quarter to 1 AM and hoped to hell that neither of us would fall asleep. But Smaug helpfully yowled most of the way so we were in no danger.

We stumbled into our cabin at a little after 2 AM. Once we'd gotten everything put away (read: out of their reach) and appropriately Hobbes-proofed the cabin, we let them out of their crates. After an hour of loves and cuddles to help them feel safe about their new environs, and helping them onto and into the bed (the sedative lasts for 8 to 12 hours so they were still wobbly), we turned in for the night, exhausted. Hobbes proceeded to yowl for the next 2 hours, which is pretty much the only sound two exhausted adults are unable to sleep through. I assured Sally it was simply a reaction to the sedative, and that we did not in fact have nightly yowling to look forward to for the rest of the trip. I had no idea if it was or wasn't, but we were facing catricide here, so I had to think of something.

click to see full photo galleryThat inauspicious start notwithstanding, however, they were amazing the entire rest of the time. Mellow, loving, completely well-behaved. Not once did they pee anywhere other than the catbox. The normal craziness of mealtimes -- in which they go competely batshit at least an hour before feeding time, in which valuables are broken in an effort for attention and humans are heard to utter the phrase, "YOUR SISTER IS NOT A CHEW TOY!" -- was replaced with a calm, orderly manner. There wasn't a single, miniscule threat of a cystitis flare-up and it was nothing but peace, love, and harmony all the live long day. We were seriously freaked out at the change in these cats while were there. Could it be that cats need a vacation, too?

As for us, we were in desperate need of this vacation, and wow, did we ever get it. On the first day, Sherry mentioned that our cabin had just opened up for the night of our departure date and would we want to stay an extra night. And you guys? That right there was proof of a benevolent universe after all, because there was no way we could've been all OMG YES PLEASE to such a thing if we didn't already have the cats with us.

click to see full photo galleryThe weather was a.maz.ing. We had nice but cool, cool and then cloudy, cloudy and then deliciously foggy, nice and a little bit warmer, really really nice and quite pleasanty temperate. Our last full day, we woke up to a perfectly cloudless blue sky that stayed that way the entire day. Most of the day was spent on the beach.

The day before had been mostly clear with a mild breeze, so we'd spent that day walking the length of the beach, in the water the whole way, stopping at tide pools and picking up shells and rocks and sand dollars. (We always bring home at least a rock or two when we go to the coast, so we have something from every visit, but this is the first time in a long time that we've brought home so many.) The first two days, we got to enjoy at least some beach time before it got too chilly, and then we cozied up in our little cabin with our fuzzy little kitties and good food, and marathoned our next new show. (Friday Night Lights, FINALLY! Cat: we must now squee because omg!!)

click to see full photo galleryGood food, of course, is a staple of our getaways. Our cabin this time was one of the ones with a mini fridge and hot plate instead of full fridge and stove/oven, so we have to plan our grocery list accordingly and make more things ahead of time, but still feast like Damn Hell Ass Kings. Tacos the first night, smorgasbord the second, crockpot chili the third (the night of the 4th). We'd intended to build a fire on the beach for the evening of the 4th, and to roast hot dogs and marshmallows and eat s'mores, but it got too cloudy and chilly for that, so we decided to try for Tuesday night and had smorgasbord. Yeah, feel so sorry for us and our awesomeness.

Unfortunately, Tuesday night was too windy for us to feel safe building a fire to roast hot dogs for dinner, but we had plenty to eat so we were in no danger of going hungry. Then near sunset, the winds calmed down and it got downright balmy (the temps all day had been in the 80s, but the wind throughout the day was enough to make it a tad chilly at times). We'd already eaten dinner so it was too late for hot dogs, but hey, we still had those marshmallows that needed a good roasting!

So we hightailed it back to the cabin, changed into some warmer clothes, stuffed a bag full of supplies (matches, newspaper, skewers, marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate bars...oh, and a beer for Sally and jug of water for me :), and set out for the spot we'd marked for our clandestine beach fire a few days before.

click to see full photo galleryWe'd stockpiled some good dry driftwood and stashed it up in the rocks above the high tide line when we'd been out picking up rocks and seashells. We'd had our eye on a couple of nice firepits someone had built up (probably for the 4th), hoping that at least one of them would be unused once the holiday crowd was gone. They were quite a ways down from the beach entrance, a good mile and a half down the beach, and since most people tend to cluster right around the entrance (something I will never understand -- you have 3 miles of gorgeous beach, people, why the hell are you all concentrating within the same 100 yard radius???), we felt pretty confident we'd be able to use one of those pits.

A decent fog was rolling in by the time we were about halfway there and it well past sunset, so it was a bit dicey whether or not we'd find our stash. We ended up picking the closer of the two pits we'd staked out, which turned out to be the nicer of the two, with a huge log that was the perfect size for seating and a well stacked ring of rocks to give the fire a chance to take hold even with a decent wind.

In no time at all Sally had a good fire base going, and then got it built to a size that was strong and steady without being too big. And from there, we proceeded to roast half a package of giant marshmallows, eating one for every one that we used for a s'more. We watched the waves dwindle away behind the dark and the mist, and most everything around us turn hazy and distant. But it was clear overhead and the sound of the waves echoed back at us from the steep wooded slope behind us, and we could see swathes of stars above. We talked about how long it'd been since we'd sat at a campfire together, how long since we'd roasted marshmallows, how long since we'd seen so many stars, how long we'd been married. It'll be 14 years in a week, and that number seems both too big and too small in all the right ways.

We were done eating long before we were ready to leave, so we just sat and enjoyed the fire until it had mostly burned down, then doused it with sand and headed back in the dark, the waves at our left, the cliffs at our right, the stars overhead. And that ended the last full day of our summer beach vacation.

click to see full photo gallerySo basically, we did like we always do on these secret coast getaways. We read big books from our tottering To Read Pile and listened to iPods and dozed in the sun. We talked and we laughed. We started a new show and ate lots of good food. We waded in the water and got used to sand in and on everything. We took pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. We watched sunsets and listened to waves crashing and dreamed about the tiny little place we'll have on the coast someday.

get me off this crazy train of crazy craziness

Otherwise titled: "Welcome to My Life". Long, busy days, more work to be done than hours in the day to do it, and somehow I am still expected to be a responsible adult in the midst of it all -- vet appointment, tires replaced (F U DOUCHEBAG DEVELOPER I KNOW IT WAS YOU), website clients updated, grocery delivery to schedule, calls/emails to return (PLEASE DON'T STOP BEING MY FRIEND IF YOU'RE ONE OF THE PEOPLE I OWE THESE TO, K?), and a to do list to complete for top secret reasons (all shall be revealed next week...how's that for building suspense?). Oh and also? Our phones have simultaneously decided to go to shit, because we are cursed. (Epic post coming about the phone situation and all the ways in which we are Technology's bitch. But I digress.)

Wow, I sure am a fan of the parenthetical, aren't I?

Ahem. Anyway, could've saved you all of that by linking to this incredibly brilliant comic at Hyperbole and a Half, since it is basically the inside of my brain in electronic ink and pretty much everyone in my online circle has decided that lo, it is our manifesto. So from now on when I say, "YOU GUYS GUESS WHAT IT IS A DAY WHERE I HAVE TO CLEAN ALL THE THINGS I NEED PITY AND CHOCOLATE", you will understand my meaning.

Nonetheless, I soldier on. Including lunch, because I have reached a point with bento now where I am no longer able to function without it. Which is probably a good thing, even if it sounds like a bad thing, because it is a sign that I am actually eating on a regular basis and my body is no longer "what is this foreign concept of meals of which you speak?" every time I have lunch at the office. So...yay?

Lunch:

• shrimp sauteed in butter, garlic, sea salt, and fresh ground pepper
• bok choy sauteed in a bit of sesame oil and sea salt
• molded egg, woot woot!
• Rainier cherries
• green grapes
• Oregon! strawberries
• blueberries
• dark chocolate (I was scrounging in my bento cupboard and came across a few pieces of Valrhona 70% dark chocolate that'd somehow been overlooked -- I KNOW RIGHT -- and I may have possibly done the Snoopy Happy Dance in my kitchen)

I think I've mentioned our CSA share includes a half dozen fresh eggs every week, so I have been gobbling up yummy hard-boiled eggs that have pretty mottled shells. Some of them even a have pretty pale blue shelss! But they've been too small for the egg molds, so I haven't bothered shaping them. But then this week's had a ginormous one in there, bigger even than the jumbos at New Seasons. (It was seriously so big that I could hardly clip the mold shut. I even had difficulty getting it out later.) So obviously I had to mold it!

fruity goodness and developer badness

Making up for yesterday's wee bit o' decadence with fruit, fruit, and more fruit. Froooooooot! (Actually, the fruit bin arrived last night and holy crap! We have a lot of fruit to eat up! I see smoothies in our future for a late night treat.)

Breakfast:

• Oregon! strawberries
• blueberries
• Rainier cherries
• grapes

Lunch:

• stir fry -- red kale, Italian lacinato kale, French sorrell, Swiss chard, turnips, onion, garlic, lemongrass, bamboo shoots, peanuts, carrots, beef, special sauce
• jasmine rice
• Oregon! strawberries and Rainier cherries with blueberries and grapes as gap fillers

In house-related news...we lost the fight against Douchebag Developer. It didn't come as a surprise -- this time around was even more of a long-shot than last time, which is really saying something, and the fight was less organized this time around. Which isn't anyone's fault -- there just wasn't much of anything to get a toehold on to dispute. Still a disappointment, though. I would've loved to have someone buy that little house and fix it up. What a shame.

So instead, it's going to get razed to the ground and in its place will be 8 townhomes with one of those shitty central driveways that craptastic developers put in and everyone swears will allow even the biggest gas-guzzling behemoth to navigate into and out of, but which will do nothing but ensure that said behemoths will be parking on the street. To say nothing of the view the building will be blocking, nor this developer's horrible record of half-assed construction that takes so long to sell that units sit empty forever, and then when they do sell eventually (or become rentals), end up in defect litigation.

I'm still boggled that he's pushing a development in the current market. And one of his typically crappy developments, at that. What a douchebag. But I guess once they're built and sold, we'll finally be rid of him and his douchebaggery and won't have to sit in the same room with his stupid smirk ever again.

site news, artwork, and a strawberry theme

Still working on adding things, so keep checking back. We hope to have Sal's beer making adventures up soon, and then I'd like to tackle updating about the house projects we've completed in the four years since the old site was last updated. Including! Pictures from converting the spare room into a library! And of course we're blogging here on the main page regularly. With non-bento posts, even!

Speaking of bento madness, I've just completed an additional page of the site called, funnily enough, Bento Madness. (You can find it in the Smorgasbord dropdown menu.) The new page explains a basic overview of what bento is, how I got started doing it, my own personal bento philosophy, and rules I've made for myself in packing them, as well as two photo galleries that can be viewed as slide shows.  So if you're one of the people new to my obsession with all things bento, perhaps that will make Teh Crazy a little bit clearer.

The first photo gallery contains all of my bento pics since bento 2.0 baby! began, and will include new pics as they're posted. It's interesting to see the evolution of my lunches since my revitalized interest began...well, interesting to me, anyway. (Note that the gallery is actually split into two pages, so they're viewed in two separate slide shows.) The second gallery includes pictures of each of the boxes I use and a short description of each, including its volume. It can also be viewed as a slide show.

Breakfast:

• Oregon strawberries! (if you missed it, read my ode to Oregon strawberries! from yesterday)
• mini sidecar with plain honey yogurt and a dollop of marionberry jam

Lunch:

• stir fry -- onions, scallions, lemongrass, turnips, chicken, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, kale, bok choy, sesame seeds, peanuts, and secret sauce, with more peanuts for garnish
• jasmine rice
• Oregon strawberries! in one half because I just can't get enough, orange creme cheesecake made by Sally in the other half...a bit on the decadent side, but on Mondays, you're allowed a bit of decadence

The weather is beautiful today so I made it a priority to get out of the office for lunch and eat at my little hidden park nearby. Haven't done that in far too long; time to get back in the habit. My day is always better for it.

Another thing I haven't done in awhile: my little notes in my lunch. The quote in my lunch today:

Each life converges to some centre
Expressed or still.

This is the first line from the poem Part One: Life -- LXI by Emily Dickenson. I incorporated this line into a piece of artwork for my office as a gigantic reminder to myself every day I'm there of where my real center lies. (More pics of that artwork to come...I'm thinking it's time for another photo gallery that groups our various creative endeavors in one place.)

hoods are here!

When New Seasons puts up its big banner that says, "HOODS are here!", a clock begins ticking. It is the Countdown of Wonderfulness and Delectibility, because when you see that sign, you know that you have entered a very special, extremely short period of the year of eating as many fresh Oregon strawberries as you possibly can before they disappear for another year.

For those of you who don't live here and thus don't know about Oregon strawberries, here's the deal with them: they are the best strawberries you will ever, ever eat. I am not exaggerating in any way. If you've never had an Oregon strawberry, you have never eaten a true strawberry, trufax. No, I will accept no arguments on this point

They're dark, dark red, almost wine-colored. They are red all the way through -- there are no white centers. They're so juicy that the juice drips down your chin when you take the first bite and you will not wipe it off with a napkin, because that would be a criminal waste. Instead, you will wipe it off with your hand so that you can lick off every last bit of delicous berry juice. When they're in season, you will sell your own children for a pint of them. They're that good.

You may not have known Oregon even has these famous strawberries. We didn't, and believe me, we did our research about Oregon before we came here. Even when we got here, it took almost a year before we heard the first whispers of the Mythical Oregon Strawberry. People boasted about them the way they might talk about that record-breaking fish that got away, or sighting Sasquatch on a hike in the Gorge. They'll recount particularly good years like wine vintages: "Ah...1962, now that was a great year for strawberries. I still remember my dad taking me to Sauvie Island that year, and he said to me, 'Son, remember where you were when The Great Strawberry Harvest of '62 happened'..."

They're not a myth, but there's a reason that they're talked about as if they are. The strawberry season is super short, wildly varying based on the spring/early summer weather, and one of the most hotly anticipated of the entire year. And because of that, they don't make it past our borders so no one outside of Oregon ever knows about them. Hell, they don't even make it past the farms, most of the time, before they are devoured by the teeming hordes of strawberry-craving Oregonians. News of the imminent arrival of the strawberries is something that passes by word-of-mouth, and is the kind of thing that you only find out about by knowing someone who knows someone. Ostensibly, the strawberries appear at the end of May through the middle or end of June -- if you're lucky. Sometimes they arrive as early as the 1st of May, sometimes (as it was this year) as late as the end of June. Strawberry season may be a few weeks, maybe (rarely) as many as six. Every year is different.

Impromptu strawberry stands pop up along the highways on the edges of the city and the U-Pick farms at Sauvie Island have lines and wait lists. When they finally make it to the stores, they only last a day before they sell out. Sometimes only hours, especially in the beginning of a short and delayed season. You learn to snatch them up whenever you see them because there's a good chance those will be the only ones you get all year. You buy as many as you can every time -- a full flat, even if you'll be the only person eating them (you won't, but a girl can always dream...). Even if you get them in your delivered produce bin from Organics 2 U, as we do, they'll only spare you a precious handful, not even a full pint.

And if you do get them, you won't sully them with sprinkled sugar or cream or anything else. For one thing, you won't need to, but for another, there's a Secret Strawberry Police who will arrest you and charge you with crimes against food if you do these things. (Although it is considered acceptable to make either strawberry shortcake or fresh strawberry ice cream with Oregon strawberries. These are not crimes, these are sublime. However. They get mixed up with rhubarb and baked in pie? Slap on the handcuffs, buddy, you have committed a crime.)

So assuming you're not an idiot, you will simply fill a bowl with cold water, gently place the strawberries in the bowl and lightly dunk them under the water a couple of times, then gently pour them out into a strainer. Then you will gently place them in a bowl, if you have some modicum of self control, or else you and your nearest and dearest will cluster around the strainer. And you will stand over them, either in the bowl or in the strainer, and you will eat them in solemn, reverent silence, one after the other, respectfully eating no more than your share while quietly keeping track that no one else eats more than theirs. And when they're all gone, you will have a moment of silence in the event those were your last strawberries for the season (even if, lucky you, they don't end up being your last), and will lovingly place the stems in the compost bin, and be filled with such bliss and contentment that you would happily die at that moment with no regrets whatsoever.

tickets!

Bitty: So...guess who's playing MusicFest NW this year?

Sally: ?

Bitty: The Decemberists!

Sally: Srsly? Awesome.

Bitty: Right? And get this: they're playing at Pioneer Square. Wouldn't that be the best?

Sally: When is it?

Bitty: September.

Sally: Man. That would be the best! We should get tickets.

Bitty: ...

Sally: You already did, didn't you?

Bitty: Well, I am the best wife ever invented.

Sally: Yes. Yes you are.

if you can't stand the heat, you're probably just like me

Yesterday was the first sunny, warm day we've had in awhile...so of course that's the day I decide I want to roast things in the oven. I r smrt.

Made for a great dinner, though, and because today was forecast to be just as warm, I decided turning the leftovers into a salad was in order for lunch. Unfortunately, my plans to make blueberry muffins had to be scrapped because it was just too darn hot in the kitchen.

The beets, radish, lettuces, and spring onion are from this week's share. And Wealth Underground has invited sharemembers to post on their blog to show pics of meals we've made from our share produce, exchange recipes, and that kind of thing. Isn't that cool? So I do believe I'll be posting over there sometimes, too. I'm excited to see what other sharemembers post!

• green & red leaf lettuces lining the box
• herb roasted chicken breast
• julienned carrots
• beets roasted with spring onion
• radish "flower"
• sunflower seeds
• homemade sweet vinaigrette
• Ritter Sport chocolate with butter biscuit for a special treat

lunch, movies, and naked bike rides

[NOTE: Had this all ready to post this afternoon but my phone wasn't cooperating so I had to wait until I got home to upload the pic via bluetooth. A simultaneous "GRR!" and "YAY!" for technology....]

No time for breakfast today so a little bigger lunch. Tuesdays seem to be like that more often than not, mainly because I have a lot of meetings on Tuesdays. More than usual today, since one of my monthly conference calls is today, too. But! CSA share pickup tonight, woot woot!

Laptop Lunch box:

• ham & cheese wrap
• salad: wild mixed greens, red & green leaf lettuces, sesame seeds (homemade balsamic vinaigrette in the small container in the silverware compartment
• star-molded egg, greens for garnish and carrots as gap fillers to add to the salad
• fresh blueberries; dark chocolate and yogurt covered raisins in the small container

We saw Toy Story 3 Saturday night, and...well, no spoilers here so I'll just say that IT WINS THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE OF PERFECTION AND AMAZINGNESS BASICALLY. And also makes you cry like a fountain. NO NOT JUST ME SAL CRIED TOO EVEN IF HE DENIES IT BECAUSE HE IS A BIG LYING LIAR.

Saturday was also the annual Naked Bike Ride, though we didn't encounter any part of the ride this year. Portland, btw, had over 13,000 riders this year. I don't know how that compares to the turnout in other cities, but wow, that's a whole lotta naked!

The first time we ever encountered the naked bike ride was the about five years ago. We were driving someplace downtown and were stopped at an intersection by cops on bikes stopping in front of us and less than a minute later, this whole stream of naked bike riders went streaking by. It was awesome and hilarious, and I think we must've sat there and laughed the entire time. Portland ftw!

ETA: And thanks to this late posting, I've already picked up this week's share. A couple of new-to-me veggies this week: Italian lacinato kale and French sorrel. How exciting! Wonder if Sally has ever used either of these?

In every share so far, we've had garlic greens and/or spring onions, with those thick, long, pretty green ends that you see in the picture at that link, and they're always poking out of the bag along with everything else overflowing out of the top. I don't know what it is about those garlic and onion greens, but Hobbes goes completely bananas as soon as I walk in the door with them. I can't keep him away from them!

The first thing I do when come home Tuesday nights is march directly to the kitchen with the bag held well out of his reach (as he jumps along the way trying to reach them), pull out those greens and chop off the tops to put in the compost bin. Which then goes back under the sink with a twisty tie around the cabinet handles so he doesn't pry the door open trying to get at them. The rest of the produce is safe from him after that long enough for me to go change out of my work clothes and get a drink of water before I return to clean and store everything from the week's share.

stir fry deliciousness

We had some kale, bok choy, and turnips from our share to use up before tomorrow's new share arrives, so we did a stir fry for dinner last night. When we use the wok, we use Sally's burner that he heats the big kettle with for brewing beer, since A) it gets the kind of heat a wok needs, and B) we don't an overhead vent for our stove. That means doing it outside, which is fun.

For those of you not living here, however, you may not know that this has been one of the coldest, wettest springs in a long time, and June has broken all kinds of records for rainfall and low temps. Yesterday was no different -- gray and damp though it wasn't cold, just cool. Our timing was perfect, though, because we happened to be outside with the wok between drizzle spells. And it was the perfect weather for curling up on the couch with hot bowls of stir fry and rice and catching up on our Netflix discs (the end of Season 5 of Weeds, in this case).

Anyway, today's bento benefits from golden stir fry deliciousness.  Too bad my cameraphone does it little justice.

Breakfast -- cute animals sidecar:

• honey vanilla granola
• mini sidecar with plain honey yogurt and a dollop of strawberry jam

Lunch -- Ms. Bento:

• stir fry -- onions, scallions, lemongrass, turnips, chicken, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, kale, bok choy, sesame seeds, peanuts, and secret sauce
• jasmine rice
• fresh mango in one half, Fuji apple slices in the other half with fresh blueberries as gap fillers

the hallway's back, bitchez!

The site's been live for awhile, but we're nearing the official launch, with the switchover of the domain pointing to the new site. Not everything's been ported over yet, but if we waited until that was done, it'd be another four years before the site ever got updated. (Well hopefully, not, but still!)

Some of the more recent work on the house has yet to be written up and posted, and only some of the pictures from our various vacations and getaways in the last few years have been posted. Oh, and I know we've got pictures from activities around Portland to get on here, too. And AND! There will soon be pics of Sal's brewing (mis)adventures, which should be fun, and he'll no doubt be posting on this here blog about his continuing experimentations from time to time.

But this is a good start. We've got all the latest in my ongoing bento obsession, and pictures we know you haven't seen yet from some more recent trips (and more to come) and even on a house project or two. AND! Some never-before-seen pictures of the house before we moved in.  And some other little surprises here and there.

We've got some neat new features, too. The RSS feed, of course, and a bunch of social networking widgets so you can find us in other places (the top row is my accounts, the bottom row is Sal's). You can search the site now, and comment on entries, something that many of you have wanted for a long time. Oh! And over there in the right hand sidebar, the "Recently Updated" section will tell you the 10 most recent changes made to the site, outside this main journal page, including new pictures posted, additional entries made to the Hall House section, new links added. Pretty wicked, no? You should totally check this place out, you guys.

We're excited to be back to using the site again and to give people a way to stay updated on what we're up to. We hope you'll check back regularly, subscribe to the RSS feed, and even comment if you're so inclined. You know how we love feedback!

be nice to your neighborhood geek, she works hard for you

Meetings right from the start this morning, almost to noon, and I have about 20 minutes to bolt down my lunch before the Corporate IT guys arrive for the weekend's Technological Extravaganza. On top of working this weekend AND the projected 80 degree weather we're supposed to have Saturday and Sunday, I think I'm coming down with the bug that went through our office like a bad wind. I had the scratchy throat thing yesterday that never went away, and the scratch is now firmly lodged in my throat today. Joy. It's going to be a loooong night, and a loooong weekend, y'all. Which is why my Big Box O'Fruit is making me inordinately happy today.

pink Natural Lunch box:

• banana
• Pink Lady apple slices
• nectarine quarters
• blueberries for gap fillers

black strawberry box:

• Thai peanut chicken
• hard boiled egg (LOVE those farm fresh eggs every week!)
• dill & vinegar potato salad
• nectarine slices
• strawberry slices
• yogurt raisins

lots of food for a long day

Today is the start of the Massive Technological Project that will consume my evening, will require going into the office tomorrow and working until late, working all day Saturday (on what will be our first 80 degree day of the year ::sadface::), and possibly part or all of the day Sunday. I expect to be eating dinner late tonight, hence the larger box for lunch and the large snack/breakfast box.

pink "Natural Lunch" box:

• half of a banana (still in the peel to keep it from browning)
• an orange
• most of a Pink Lady apple
• blueberries as gap fillers

bunny & moon box:

• black forest ham, colby slices, and green leaf lettuce in a spinach wrap, with a spinach leaf tucked around to add to the wrap
• dill & vinegar potato salad
• celery sticks
• honey glazed sweet potatoes
• honey peanut butter dip
• dark chocolate and yogurt covered raisins <--(I should just create a macro for this phrase to save myself some typing)

fruit-ilicious

We switched our organics bin to fruit only for the summer now that the CSA has started, so there's a ton of yummy fruit to eat up, hence the all-fruit breakfast today. And tonight is the trip to the CSA, which I can tell already is going to be a high point in my week this summer.

pink strawberry sidecar (breakfast):

• strawberries
• Rainier cherries
• blueberries

black strawberry box (lunch):

• grilled Thai peanut chicken (leftover from the skewers we did Saturday night)
• vinegar and dill potato salad
• Rainier cherries & blueberries
• celery sticks
• mango
• honey peanut butter for dipping
• dark chocolate and yogurt covered raisins

it takes a village

Today was our neighborhood block party. There was lots of food and a bouncy house for the kids, and a makeshift stage for neighborhood musicians, chalk for the kids to draw to their hearts' content and a plant exchange and a map for us to mark neighborhood assets for trade and barter, or neighborhood activities: "Mike and Michelle -- garden with veggies for trade, flowers to share", "Ivy and C -- chicken coop, eggs to barter, cob structure sauna", "Mona -- textiles, music", "Paul and Pete -- carpentry and woodworking, foreign language lessons". Like that.

click to see more picturesBut the main event was the "intersection repair": painting the intersection down the street with a big compass rose design created by a collaboration of neighbors. There were buckets of recycled paint in nine colors and a chalked out design on the street. Everyone brought a brush and spent this gloriously beautiful day painting the hell out of the intersection. Mother Nature herself was completely on board, because she called a temporary stop to the weeks of rain that've put a damper on even the hardiest Pacific Northwesterner's spirits and even intermittently shut down the annual Rose Festival. Until late afternoon yesterday, no one was sure if this long-planned street painting project was going to happen.

But happen it did. With kids running about and a band rocking out in the background. And the end result? Pretty damn awesome.

We stuck around for a bit, but decided to skip out on the evening BBQ even though we'd spent the earlier part of the day making potato salad and cookies for the occasion. We love our neighborhood to itty bitty bohemian pieces, but it was a lot of people, and we already don't get a lot of time together as it is. Plus, with the first nice weather we've had in weeks, our little backyard sanctuary was calling to us.

We were sitting there watching the goings on after the painting was finished, just soaking up the moment and the lovely weather, and Sally said, "Sooo...do you still want to stick around for the potluck?" I grinned. "Do you?" "Not really." I had to hug him at that moment, because that's what you do when someone reads your mind and understands everything without you having to say anything. "Me neither."

So Sally threw a few skewers on the grill and I drizzled some fresh asparagus with a bit of oil and sea salt and pepper, then set the little table on our back porch. While we waited for the coals to get going, we did some trimming of the roses in the back corner and walked around the yard and marveled at how much it's changed in the 8 years we've been here.

Then we kicked back on the porch and talked while we took our time enjoying our dinner -- spicy marinated pork and Thai peanut chicken skewers, my famous dill and vinegar potato salad, and grilled asparagus -- the new star-shaped curtain lights for lighting and the local jazz station on low volume for atmosphere.

Not a bad day. Not a bad day at all.

long day ahead

Work on a major Tech Project will keep me here late, so I made sure to pack myself a good hearty breakfast and lunch. But no snack, because I will use that as my cue and excuse to get out at a relatively reasonable time; when my tumbly gets grumbly, I'll assert that it's time for me to go lest I eat their faces off.

Breakfast -- cute animals sidecar

• herb & cheese bagel -- I love these bagels like nobody's business, but they're always sold out at New Seasons when I think to look for them
• plain yogurt with a dollop of strawberry jam in the mini-sidecar

Lunch -- black strawberry box:

• homemade spicy meatballs on a salad of mixed greens, with turnip pieces and radish slices (dressing in a small condiment container underneath)
• honey-roasted sweet potatoes
• Rainier cherries & celery sticks
• honey peanut butter for dipping; yogurt and dark-chocolate covered raisins

twenty years ago today...

Twenty years ago yesterday, Sal and I officially started "going out". (What do the kids call it these days? I am eighty-nine years old, apparently.) School had gotten out a few days before, I was headed off to Casper to spend the summer as a nanny for my aunt and uncle, and Sal had only just passed his driver's test and wouldn't be allowed to drive such a long trip on his own. I gave him stationery, envelopes, and cool pens and pencils so he could write me. He gave me "The Little Mermaid" soundtrack so I wouldn't forget our date just two weeks before.

I think a rewatch may be in order....

first csa share of the season!

I had our CSA pickup to look forward to today, so I walked out the door at 4:30 PM so I could pick up our share and still be home at an earlier time than usual. Our CSA is just a few miles north of our house, in the West Hills just above Linnton.

As I got out of the car, I let go of the stress of the day and the last few weeks. I wish I'd thought to bring my camera so I could've taken pictures because it's absolutely magical, but their website will give you a bit of an idea. It was gray and misty and sprinkling (as it's been for days and days on end here) and the farm is nestled in the midst of forest. Chickens roaming about, rows of plants down the hillside, trellises made from random sticks and twine. Hand-lettered signs, a painting for the chickens to enjoy in the coop, window boxes full of flowers. I love everything about Wealth Underground, emphatically, everything they stand for and believe in.

Nolan and Chris were there to greet me as I picked up our first share in one of their lovely natural cotton canvas bags designed by Nolan. We got to know each other a bit, and I mentioned that Sal is the lead pastry chef instructor at OCI, which they've partnered with (Brian, one of the school's founders, is also a CSA sharemember). They're sweet and nice and kind, and clearly very passionate about what they're doing. They had samples of turnip there for tasting -- "Turnips don't usually get me excited," Nolan said, "but these do." I know why -- it was sweet and crunchy. Who knew? They were giving away cherry tomato starts -- yellow or red, our choice -- and even though we're always overrun by tomatoes in our garden, I took one anyway.

I'm so excited that we get to be in on the ground floor of this wonderful experiment of theirs! I left with a heavy bag in one hand, a half dozen fresh eggs in the other, and a grin on my face, and I ate a dinner that consisted of nothing but a heaping bowl of greens with turnip and radish slices, and fresh hard boiled eggs. (That's a pound of greens in the share.) I decided to make the arugula pesto recipe on their website.

This is going to be a good summer...

i vote for three day weekends every week

How was everyone's weekend? Did you get to do something fun and relaxing?

Ours was nice -- a good combination of fun, productive, and relaxing. We spent Saturday and Sunday in the yard working on our To Do List to get it ready to enjoy for the summer. We didn't get everything on our list done, but we accomplished a lot:

• weeded the back bed and cleared out of the last of the spring bulb plants that have died back, which were beginning to choke out some of the other stuff trying to poke up through all that decaying vegetation; we've gotten so much rain that everything was slimy and squishy...yuck!
• Sal trimmed the apple tree, including a lot of trimming and shaping of the under-canopy
• raked the patio and the areas under the apple and Japanese maple trees
• Sal trimmed the rosebushes in the front; I trimmed and re-directed the canes of the climbing rose in the back -- we're going to need at least one more trellis on the back fence this year because that bad boy is going completely bananas
• Sal trimmed the lilacs, part of a 3 year plan to get them whipped into shape after several years of not tending to them like we should've
• back porch cleaned, swept, and mopped, including the screens all the way around and everything set up so we can now sit out there and walk around in our bare feet without turning the bottoms of our feet black
• yard decorations (wind chimes, lanterns, etc.) unpacked and set out
• install my new star-shaped curtain lights from IKEA (that I bought six months ago and completely forgot about until I unpacked the yard stuff)

And all of that despite the gray days and wet weather. Actually, it was pretty great working-in-the-yard weather Saturday and Sunday -- not too hot or cold, didn't really rain, and it was gray (not just overcast) so we didn't have to worry about sunscreen, with some nice sunbreaks here and there. However, despite wearing two thin, long-sleeved shirts, pants, gardening gloves, and work boots, I still managed to get bitten all to hell by mosquitoes. I have about a dozen quarter-sized welts on my legs that are going to drive me mad for days.

Left to do:

• plant the salvia that mom gave Sal for his birthday
• plant my annuals that we started when we did our veggie starts
• put up the twinkle lights in the trees
• weed the sidewalk strips
• replace a few of the plants we lost over the winter from last year's landscape-o-rama (namely, the jasmine and one of the clematis)
• get two more metal bins from IKEA to store a few things on the back porch
• oil the front porch swing and rocker

There are other things we want to do, of course, but once we've taken care of those items, we'll be able to call it good for enjoying the yard whenever we want this summer

But working in the yard wasn't all we got accomplished this weekend. We relaxed in the evenings watching movies and cuddling under blankets with the kitties on the couch. And yesterday was reserved for non-work or chore items: Sally brewed another batch of beer (his third batch this month!) and I spent the day writing. Also a productive day: he got his batch put up AND the last batch bottled, and I reached a milestone of my own.

back to the grind

To a really hectic stretch of work this week and next, unfortunately. And I have a bunch of things to get done in the evenings this week, too, so no rest for the weary, I guess. Our first CSA pickup is tonight, and then I need to get my website clients updated when I get home, which means a late night, and probably tomorrow night, as well. Errands Thursday night, something I'm forgetting Friday, and a block party Saturday, which includes the neighborhood project of painting the intersection down the street (with a design that Sal and I haven't seen yet, but knowing our awesomely artistic neighbors, ought to be cool no matter what).

And today marks our 8 year house-iversary...8 years since the old girl became ours, and wow, has a lot changed since then. If I ever get our website updated before I start collecting Social Security, I'll have lots of new pictures of that progress.

Anyway, on to lunch. It was a busy weekend (more on that in another post) so there wasn't a lot of cooking happening from which to cull leftovers for lunch. Today's more of a smorgasbord, but that's never a bad thing, is it?

Laptop Lunch box:

• Applegate Farms pepperoni slices, alternating with smoked mozzarella slices
• sourdough bread
• steamed broccoli
• dark chocolate and yogurt covered raisins, with walnuts in the small inner container

food cart mesopotamia

Taken with my cameraphone at a new food cart pod* near our house, called North Station. There are 14 carts at this location in a small corner parking lot, everything from Venezualan BBQ to mac 'n cheese to Korean vegan/vegetarian. That little teal and white cart in the corner is Wicked Waffles, where we went this morning for breakfast -- the Wicked Perfect, which was a corn batter waffle wrapped around scrambled egg, bacon, and Tillamook cheddar. And the Wicked Waffle original -- vanilla bean batter waffle coated in cinnamon sugar. Wicked delicious!

*(Food carts, if you didn't know, are a booming business here in the Rose City, and we have some pretty darn imaginative and eclectic options. There are several places in town where carts have clustered together on formerly abandoned or empty lots, called food cart pods.)