portlandia

We finally had a chance to watch Portlandia this weekend and omg I am in love. I'd already seen/heard the "Dream of the 90s (is alive in Portland)" vid all over the place, and snippets of some of the skits, so I knew ahead of time it was going to be pretty damn fabulous. Oh, but it's ever so much more fabulously Portlandic than I even hoped. And yes, "Dream of the 90s" is totally the Portland we know and love.

Shot here, using a mostly Portland cast and crew, it promises to be a hit at least in this little part of the USian TV market. And when they say it's shot here, they really mean it. For the skit about ordering chicken in the restaurant, when they go to the farm where it was raised, I kept telling Sal, "Wow, that really looks like Wealth Underground (our CSA)". More shots, and the more I kept saying, "I swear, that's got to be Wealth Underground." Sure enough, it is -- I guess I missed that post over the holiday. I don't know why, but recognizing the farm -- even more than recognizing all the other locales -- just upped the thrill factor to 11.

Anyway, check it out, especially if you're a local. You'll enjoy seeing our fair city get gently spoofed and fondly skewered, as well as local familiar faces and personalities mixing with more famous ones.

lunch, blue bunny and moons:

• Thai peanut chicken
• cheesy baked potato with broccoli
• satsumas and carrot sticks
• cashews and yogurt covered raisins, separated by a bit of orange dark chocolate.

one planet, one people

"The Egyptian people will take care of themselves. The Egyptian people will be the ones who will make the change. We are not waiting for help or assistance from the outside world, but what I expect from the outside world is to practice what you preach, is to defend the rights of the Egyptian to their universal values" - Mohamed ElBaradei, currently under house arrest.

Great goddamn, I am so proud of the courage of the Egyptian protesters, of what's happened and is still happening in Tunisia, what might be starting to happen in Syria, in Yemen. My heart and prayers are with them all, with their incredible courage and will for something more, something better even as they are assaulted with water cannons for protesting with prayer.

mr. wizard in the kitchen

Sal's currently on a fermenting bender. It started with a couple of heads of cabbage we needed to use up -- remember the soup from last week? -- and he's been meaning to make a batch of sauerkraut (blech) for awhile now. So some of the cabbage went into the soup and the rest into a big glass jar he uses for fermenting. More fridge cleaning and in went a couple of turnips and a few beets.

When our organics bin arrived Monday, he was beside himself to see what else he could stick in his mad science jar. "Celery root!" he exclaimed. Would I mind if he used it in his sauerkraut? Sure, okay. "Maybe some more turnips?" Well...okay. (Keep in mind the organics delivery is our produce for all meals unless we specifically go to the store, so we actually do use the things in it for, you know, dinner and stuff.) "Oh, and some carrots!" Hey, mister, I do need at least some things to eat. That guy and his food science obsessions....

Anyway, last night he talked me out of another beet (golden chioggas this time), a couple more turnips, and two rutabagas. (And I have until next week to to use the rainbow Swiss chard or he's sticking that in the jar, too.) He spent the next hour happily slicing things up and adding them in careful layers atop whatever crazy brew has fermented already. Aww, so cute.

lunch, blue bunny & moons:

• wraps -- mozzarella in sun dried tomato tortillas
• Thai peanut chicken (originally roasted on skewers)
• carrots and broccolette (a cross between broccoli and Chinese kale)
• Minneola tangelo sections and Pink lady apple slices
• yogurt covered raisins with a piece of orange dark chocolate on the diagonal

not a bad life, all in all

We managed to be surprisingly productive in spite of ourselves this weekend. We woke up late Saturday morning not really wanting to do the things on our to-do list, but decided we'd work for an hour, just an hour, and call it good. Two hours later, the dishes were done and half the laundry was folded. Hey, you take your victories where you can get them.

It was a beautiful, beautiful day and not wanting to miss out on the first sunny day in more than a week, we decided to knock another thing off our list by making a trip to Portland Nursery to get replacement pots for the two shrubs on our front porch. See? We can be downright efficient when we have half a mind to be.

Portland Nursery, fortuitously enough, was having a sale on all their pots and we got an additional discount on one of the pots we chose that had a chip in the rim. Easy peasy. We found a new restaurant in the area to try for an early supper, and spent the last hours of the day snuggled up in a cozy pub, with a view out the window, a pint (for him), and a tasty meal. I love our life.

lunch, black strawberry box:

• stir fry -- beef, kale, spinach, carrots, red pepper, onion, broccoli, special sauce
• half jasmine rice, half short grain brown rice
• satsuma orange halves
• Rancho Royale apple chunk
• cashews and yogurt covered raisins

greater than the sum of the parts

We were both off from work yesterday -- OCI was closed for the holiday, I took a vacation day since our time off together is so rare -- so no bento yesterday. Since Sal was home, I was treated to him making dinner, which was both good and bad. Good, because obviously. Bad because it made me wish for the millionth time that we got to enjoy more meals together. But mostly good.

We had some cabbage to use up (mainly because I'm not a huge fan of cabbage, so I never think of things to use it in) so he asked me what I thought about a soup. Cabbage soup? Um, no. Well, he said, it would have potatoes (good) and some onion (also good), and hamburger (what?). Did that sound like something I would eat? Well frankly, no, but he's a chef and it's been many a meal that he's made for me with ingredients that sounded incredibly unappealing together or that I don't like much that he somehow does his magic cooking kung fu to and voila! Deliciousness. So I told him sure, I trusted that he'd make something better than what it sounded like and I'd at least try it.

Glad that I did. The soup that sounded unappealing (and probably doesn't look very tasty on camera, either) turned out quite yummy. Hearty and flavorful and not-cabbage-y at all. Just the thing for a gray, rainy day.

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• Un-cabbage-y Cabbage Soup (cabbage, lean hamburger, red onion, new potatoes, beef broth, secret herbs and spices)
• peas and carrot sticks
• Jonagold apple quarters and a satsuma
• a bit of Sal's very special carrot cake (carrots, pineapple, coconut, raisins, and walnuts with a Swiss buttercream/cream cheese frosting)

honor guard

Earlier this morning, I happened to glance out the window and noticed a long stream of police cars with lights flashing on the St. Johns Bridge. So many, filling up the eastbound lane. I went out to the porch to see what was going on, hearing helicopters overhead and had a moment of dread -- don't let it be a jumper, I whispered to the universe. There's been enough sadness and death this week.

I saw that the line of emergency lights spanned the bridge, across the river and down Bridge Avenue leading up to the bridge, and further down Hwy 30 SB. And then I remembered that Rainier Police Chief Ralph Painter's memorial is today.

The little town of Rainier, Oregon is located just a little way up Hwy 30 from us, about 40 miles. You pass through it if you're headed to Astoria or are taking the Lewis & Clark Bridge across the Columbia to Longview.

Their police chief, Chief Ralph Painter, was shot and killed last week trying to disarm a violent man in a store. By all accounts he was a good and decent man and well-loved in a small, close-knit town. He had seven children and twelve grandchildren. He was a drummer and long-distance runner. He was thinking about retiring to teach new police cadets.

Law enforcement and emergency services personnel from all over the country and even Canada planned to come to his memorial service. The town quickly realized that there would be far too many people for their little town to accomodate, and the service was moved to the Chiles Center at the University of Portland, just a few miles from our house here in North Portland.

The processional included hundreds of police cars and motorcycles, fire trucks, and ambulances. Our postman came up the steps as I was on the porch and we watched together in silence. He wondered quietly if every police car and fire truck in the state was slowly making its way across the St. Johns Bridge. It sure looked like it.

Mark Twain supposedly said, "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." It's advice I think about often, and try to remember when I get caught up in my own pettiness. I fail more often than I succeed, but it's still advice I think is worth heeding. It seems Chief Ralph Painter thought so, too.

signs that it's been a long week

When we were visiting them at Christmas, Sister related a little story about the Fabulous Miss M having lost her temper the day before with her mom and, in searching for the worst thing she could think of to call Sister, angrily declared her a "Doodie poodie whack-a-noodie". As one does.

We laughed about it the whole time we were there and for the rest of vacation, it was a running joke between Sal and me. Then we both headed back to work and I forgot about it.

Until this morning, on my way to the office. Some jerk who'd been riding my butt since the 405 interchange sped up to pass me, then changed sharply back into my lane to take the same exit I was headed for, practically clipping the corner of my car and making me hit the break in alarm. It's a good thing my window and his weren't rolled down, because I'm pretty sure if he'd heard me bust out with an angry "Doodie poodie whack-a-noodie!", he would've laughed his jerk ass off.

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• fettucine with marinara
• carrots and steamed broccoli
• satsuma and kiwi half; Sal's homemade mango gelees, chocolate caramels, and apricot-walnut nougat

experimenting with color design in lunch

Decided to try a little something different today. Instead of a range of color, I thought it might be kind of cool to pick a design palette. Because a meal is just like decorating a room.

It was kind of cool to do, and pretty in a way, but as I look at it to eat I just keep thinking, "Needs green."

lunch, deli club:

• 2 (badly) molded eggs (with a small container of sea salt on the side)
• carrot chunks
• red d'anjou pear
• satsuma
• cashews

I didn't have a bento yesterday. But! Thanks to Guy, I did not go without a delicious, homemade lunch! Grabbed one of my pasties from the freezer and a gravy packet on my way out the door in the morning, enjoyed a delicious -- and wow, very filling! -- lunch in the afternoon. And it was quite the talk of the lunchroom. There may have been drooling.

handmade christmas

Uncle Sal, showing Miss M the proper way to wear her new bike helmetAt last, the long-overdue post about all our handmade gifts from our delightful Christmas!

As most of you know, several years ago, we started opting out of the gift-giving hoopla during the holidays for a variety of reasons. It has made the holiday season infinitely more peaceful and enjoyable for us. (::waves at mom, who isn't convinced this is true but we love her anyway::) We do make exceptions for kids -- our nephew and nieces when they were younger and now for the Fabulous Miss M, and of course for Toys for Tots and the like -- because hello, party time!

For the Hall-Smiley Family Christmas this year, however, we decided we'd make homemade gifts for each other. Aside from being homemade, the other rule was that our gifts had to be made with things we already had on hand, if possible. So no going out and buying a bunch of supplies or some kind of paint by numbers kit or whatever. And you guys! As with everything that the Hall-Smiley Family does, our Handmade Christmas seriously kicked ass!

Guy's handmade gifts:

    

• for Sal -- a case of beer composed of each brew Guy's done over the years
• for me -- a half dozen of his homemade pasties, complete with packets of organic brown gravy mix, frozen and packaged so that I have an easy, yummy, homemade dinner on those nights when time is a hot commodity OR to go in a bento. AND! He even created a little treasure hunt for me to find them on Christmas morning, because he is an evil genius.

Sister's handmade gifts:

    

• for Guy -- making and decorating (with Miss M's help) a ceramic mug for his morning coffee (no pic, sorry)
• for Sal -- a wooden recipe box containing not recipes, but her memories of the meals we've shared as a family, everything that was served at the meal, and why it was memorable to her, along with blank cards to include the many future meals we'll share
• for me -- a handmade card, which explained that my gift is a Girls' Art Weekend together, complete with an itinerary and meal plan, and including activities like a visit to an art museum, shopping at an art supply store, an afternoon of arty crafty time together, and then staying up late to watch movies and eat (good) junk food

Sal's handmade gifts:

    

• for Sister -- a full quart container of homemade fresh mozzarella
• for Guy -- his own special blend of a spicy nut mix, including a blend of different nuts that he toasted and lightly caramelized with brown sugar, then tossed with a carefully-tested combination of black pepper, coriander, thyme, sea salt, and Worcestershire
• for me -- a little pencil sketch he did of garlic cloves, framed, with the words "Not just garlic, but also love" (it's a long-running inside joke/term of endearment)

Brittney's handmade gifts:

    

• for Guy -- a book safe made from an extra copy of a book I had, complete with a bookmark made from ribbon and a little key (I can't remember how I acquired it, but it was already well-loved by the time I got it -- a big chunk of middle pages had come undone from the spine, it was missing its dust jacket, and had obviously been loved hard by its former owner, and I was only using it for a shelf display so I didn't feel too bad about cutting a big hole in the middle of it)
• for Sister -- a collage piece about the what she means to me, done on a blank canvas I already had and other odds and ends from my various collections of crafty things (the quote is the KJV version of the "whither thou goest, I will go" verse from The Book of Ruth)
• for Sal* -- etched beer mugs; I bought some inexpensive 20 oz. beer mugs from IKEA, so it wasn't technically using something I already had on hand. The rest of the materials were, however. Using some old contact paper, I made word stencils for the four basic ingredients of beer: water, yeast, grain, and hops. (I drew the words on the contact paper, stuck the contact paper to the glass, then cut out the letters with an Exacto knife.) Then I used this glass etching stuff I'd bought several years ago to use on the bathroom window (that I ended up deciding not to do) to etch the words into the glass. I'd never used it before and it was pretty old so I wasn't sure if it would still work or how well. Turns out, pretty great! The stuff is seriously scary so you have to be careful with it, but it works fast and was actually pretty simple.

*[Sal's was the hardest because there was no way to do it without him seeing it during the process, so I just had to lie to him that it was actually Guy's gift, that the book safe was Sister's in addition to the collage, and that his gift was the mysterious box that made a satisfying thudding noise when you shook it (thanks to the weight I stuck inside the empty box to make it realistic). (Seriously, do not mess with me about gift-giving subterfuge: I come from a long line of women who have made it an art form.)]

pizza pockets, bento style

We had some pepperoni leftover from our coast trip last week and a big block of cojack cheese, so I had a thought last night to make pizza. And then I thought, "Hey, I could make little pizza pocket thingies for my bento!" And then I thought, "HEY! I could make a bunch of little pizza pocket thingies and freeze them for future bentos!"

Pizza's an easy enough thing to make but I wasn't sure how well it would work so I decided only to make a few pizza pockets to freeze and then a small pizza for dinner last night with the leftover dough. I didn't try any of the pockets but the pizza was tasty, so I felt pretty confident about packing it in today's lunch.

Now that I've thought of doing this, I'll try to plan to do it more often, since it can be used for a lot of different ingredients and would be a great way to use up things, as well. I've been trying to think of some good things like this that I can make fairly easily and then freeze for a "bento stash" to make lunches easy when I'm pressed for time. (It was actually Guy's homemade gift for me that gave me the idea for the pizza pockets, which will make sense when I finish the post about our homemade Christmas.)

lunch, laptop lunch:

• two pizza pockets -- organic pizza dough (courtesy of New Seasons), homemade pizza sauce of caramelized tomato paste with fresh garlic, Applegate Farms pepperoni, cojack cheese
• steamed broccoli
• satsumas
• cashews and a few small pieces of cherry-almond dark chocolate, with yogurt-covered raisins in the little condiment container

ETA: well those were a success! They heated up quickly -- just a quick minute in the microwave -- and were tasty and just the right size for a lunch.  Each pocket had two teaspoons of the pizza sauce, a tablespoon of cheese, and two thin deli slices of pepperoni, and the pocket was made from about a quarter cup of dough, so I think the overall lunch portion of two pockets was probably reasonably healthy.

when you throw down the gauntlet to the universe...

...it responds with a resounding, "HAHAHAHAHAHA I CAN BREAK YOU FOOLISH ONE." Did I say something yesterday about our Not-Resolution to reset boundaries and reclaim time from the crushing maw of obligation and responsibility? I came home last night with my neck, shoulders, and back gnarled like an ancient oak tree, eyes tired, ready to lay my head down and sleep until spring. But there was website clients' work to be done, cats to be fed, dinner to make, bento to pack, dishes to do. Well and other things, but considering dinner was sort of thrown together and I skipped the dishes entirely, those other things obviously didn't get done. That'll teach me about taking an extended vacation, egad.

However! I successfully whittled down those 216 emails to 150, of which only about 50 are left to respond to or follow-up on. (Note to future self: plan a work from home day the first day back from vacation since you're going to spend it dealing with email anyway.) It was orientation at the school today so Sally had a 9 to 5 day instead of his usual noon to midnight day (yes, really), which meant we could at least eat together and spend some time together. Curled up on the couch half-asleep, but still.

Also, when did we turn 87 years old?

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• baked potato with sour cream, cheddar, and monterey jack
• steamed broccoli (for the potato)
• Bosc pear slices, satsuma orange, and more of Sallly's "bento animal cookies"

vacation's all i ever wanted

Hello, internets!! I have returned, you may rejoice! Or roll your eyes, that works, too.

So vacation is officially over and I am officially depressed. (not really) Nineteen days away from work is really the bestest invention ever and should be something I do every month. Ha ha, I kid. (no really, nobody fire me, kay?) The downside of nineteen days of vacation is the coming back part, which is decidedly not part of the bestest invention ever, but I knew that going into it, so.

yes, it's really a screenshot of my Inbox (we don't count the Sustainability folder since it's all from automated online mailing lists)But you know what else is also not the funnest thing ever invented? THE TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN EMAIL MESSAGES WAITING IN MY INBOX THIS MORNING. Jesus H, people! Email in the workplace is srsly of the devil. I suppose I should be grateful(!) that I was gone when many people were also gone for various lengths of time for the holidays, because holy buckets I would not even want to contemplate the horrors. I'm hoping that half of that will be variations on "hey everyone I will be gone for the next 3/5/whatever days so long losers" and "oh yay vendors have brought holiday treats don't trample each other on the way to the kitchen" and thus deleted with no further effort. I AM VERY OPTIMISTIC IN THIS WAY. I kind of don't know yet how bad it is because I am feeling particularly avoidant today and thus haven't delved too deeply. Well, and I had meetings from the moment I walked in the door until, well, right now. Let's see, lunch or cleaning out my inbox...hmmm....

So, vacation! Was, as I mentioned, totally badass! It was a little more hectic at the start than either of us would've preferred due to some scheduling obligations, but nothing too traumatic. Things That I Did On My Vacation: A Thesis:

• completed the creative room, woot woot! (now renamed officially to the studio, except on the web pages here because it would break all the links and I don't feel like fixing them all)
• created our little hearts out in our creative room studio, woot woot! and left projects half-done, and all our stuff out, and it's totally okay because it's not in the middle of the kitchen or the living room and the cats can't get into any of it to chew on things and barf them back up and just generally yay for dedicated creative spaces!
• did some writing on Book 2 in the new creative room studio; also, at the coast
• made some way awesome presents for the homemade Christmas with our Smiley family, as mentioned in the last post (and yes, I still owe a write-up and pics of that...coming soon!)
• finished Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which makes me sad because ye gods and little fishes that show is goddamn freaking awesome and joins the list of great shows that died too soon and I may now be madly in love with John Connor and his almost-human Summerbot and also also ALSO Sarah Connor the mother of us all and Derek Reese of the Reese clan and omg Shirley Manson still a Scottish badass and also in addition I need to see more John Henry playing D&D oh woe why why why was this show cancelled
• went to the movies (saw Voyage of the Dawn Treader but still haven't seen Tangled so we're hoping we can fit it in next weekend before it's gone from the theaters)
• played utterly ridic amounts of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on the Wii; in other news, we are hilariously behind on gaming trends (hahaha as if we have ever been up-to-date on gaming anything, we are srsly 124 years old)
• got my website clients updated for January (those who sent me their updates, anyway) -- not really a vacation-y thing, but a considerable accomplishment considering my general attitude throughout vacation was "if it looks like work, then I'm not doing it, damn it"

a winter storm raged like a banshee the entire time we were at the coast, and of course the morning we left, it looked like this

• spent four quite glorious days at the Oregon Coast
• went out to eat at a new restaurant (Tasty & Sons); well actually, two, since we tried out Little Big Burger for the first time, as well
• went to brunch on Alberta -- hahaha Tin Shed on any day of the week what was I thinking trying to get in for brunch? god bless Alberta's many coffee shop alternatives or we would have been hungry and thus cranky otherwise -- and then to Collage with Sal and managed not to buy everything in sight
• started (finally) Wheel of Time: The Towers of Midnight and spent much happy time curled up with a satisfactorily heavy book either at the coast with a terrifically ferocious storm raging outside or at home in my terrifically cozy library; also, I have an addiction to adverbifying adjectives
• slept in...like, a whole lot
• did silly time-wasting things like playing an embarrassing amount of Angry Birds on my phone (what I don't even), for which I make no apologies because I freaking PWN that game, dude
• oh yeah, and spent every available moment with my dear and beloved Sally Bear which was still not enough but way, way more time than we've had together in a long, long while

Our vacation clearly rocked it, I think we can all agree. There were a few things not done that we'd hoped to -- no LOTR marathon this year, unfortunately -- but there's no reason we can't do them anyway. It's going to take some time to get back into the routine of things, and there's always that period of the doldrums following a vacation, but it was worth it. Also, the cats have gotten WAY too used to having our attention practically 24/7 so I expect retaliation when I get home tonight. In other news, we live with terrorists.

And you know, we actually aren't planning to get back into the routine of things. We've long since decided -- and vacation was partly used for the planning of making this happen -- that we need to refocus our efforts on boundaries with the demands on our time versus spending our time in a way that's important to us. That refocus is something you just have to do on a regular basis, that resetting of boundaries, and we just haven't had a chance to catch our breath long enough to do it. So we did. Will. Are.

New Years' Resolutions? Nay nay, for we do not believe in them! Instead, these are Our Goals That Just Happen To Coincide With The Beginning Of A New Year No They Are Not Resolutions Shut Up. Anyway, 2011 will hopefully be a good year, better than 2010 was and it better be a damn sight better than 2009 or I'll demand a refund because holy crap, 2009 sucked it.

Anywhoodle, I'm back to work, back to posting, back to catching up on the past house projects so I can post on the creative room studio project, back to folding laundry and doing dishes and other illusions of responsibility, but in a new and revised format in which responsibilities and obligations get a portion of the pie than they were getting prior to vacation.

I'm also back to bentoing. I missed doing it, and I didn't. It was nice being all free spirit-y and lackadaisical about mealtimes and such, but I sure enjoy my pretty packed lunches, lo they give me great joy, Charlie Brown. Still, it's good to take a break sometimes, just so it stays fun and enjoyable instead of becoming another obligation, non?

lunch, Paris slimline:

• jasmine rice with a stripe of peas
• orange sections and Rancho Royale apple slices
• Sal's custom blend of flavored nut mix (part of his homemade Christmas gifts)

special treat, cute animals sidecar:

• sugar cookies Sal made for me last night as a special treat for my first day back to work, which he presented to me as bento animal cookies I KNOW RIGHT HE MADE ME HOMEMADE ANIMAL COOKIES HE WINS ALL THE AWARDS IN EXISTENCE

lol somewhat homely bento I maybe didn't put much effort into it. The protein part of the equation is a tad, um, lacking, but whatever, it's still a bento and it's still one more meal I'm neither skipping nor resorting to less healthy means for.