Lazy morning.

There's nothing like a biscuit sandwich for breakfast... Or three. I made a quick batch of biscuits this morning to put egg and veggie sausage on, but they didn't rise! Old baking powder (likely cause), or really old buttermilk (bought it back in mid December) were the obvious culprits. Or I just kneaded too much. Whatever it was, doesn't really matter - they tasted yummy!

Roller Derby

For my birthday (yes, back in November), Carol and Barry took Phil and me to roller derby this past weekend! It was really exciting, and I'm totally hooked now. There's something beautiful about watching adult women skate really fast and sort of beat each other up for fun. I told Phil I'd be quite happy getting season tickets once I move up to Seattle.

Long weekend

Had a great weekend in Seattle with many many friends. Becca and I drove up on Friday afternoon and had with a couple of her college friends and Phil at La Isla. I ordered rare steak on a salad, but didn't eat much since I was still nursing a food poisoning tummy from the day before. The bites I did have were delicious, and everyone seemed really happy with their meals.

On Saturday, Phil and I met up with my Portland friends, Shane and Kevin, and ate at Table 219. My tummy was more on the mend, so I helped myself to a chicken sausage scramble, and my favorite kind of potatoes.

After a painful evening of pulling on some plastic, Phil and I got Thai takeout and watched a movie. It was a fairly early night for us, and we got up early the next day to hit Steven's Pass with Ava. The snow was heavy, and the vertigo was pretty bad, but we had a blast. That was only the second time I've skied in two years, and it felt really good to gets some turns in. We even managed to take the chair to the very top and enjoy a very steep mogul field. We skied till all of us had weak, cramping legs, then had beer and burgers from the lodge.

Once we got back to Seattle, we reconvened with Becca and headed out to Txori Bar. We got a bunch of weird little bites (and they really are bites), including squid in its own ink and spanish chorizo with shaved chocolate. We also had some not-so-weird stuff like, cauliflower and rabbit. The pictures tend to speak for themselves. (Below, Becca is appreciating every last bit of the rabbit bones.)

After a shameless stop at the drive-in to pick up some burgers and fries, we all settled in at Phil's house to watch Mean Girls - which I'd never seen. Big fan now. It was a really nice long weekend. I'm very relaxed now!

Phil's in Seattle

As a lot of you already know, Phil moved to Seattle a few weeks ago to work for Urbanspoon. This is quite exciting for all sorts of reasons, but I am selfishly mostly excited about the fact that he's closer in mileage and therefore we get to spend significantly more time together. He moved into a cool rental house with a lot of weird features including 1) a warm water dog bath in the basement; 2) tons of windows in every room and not a single curtain or shade; 3) pine flooring; 4) cork walls in one room; 5) a sink that has a regular faucet, and also a "pot filler" that is extra tall and can run at full water pressure while the other faucet is being used; and 6) fruiting shaggy mane mushrooms in the driveway. In case you couldn't tell, I really like Phil's house. I like Seattle too. I'd never been to Seattle before he moved there, and oddly enough, now Josh and I are both spending a lot of time there together as well. (Phil and Josh and Ava went to see the new Matchstick Productions film, and of course Josh dressed up as Saucerboy.)

Last weekend while walking around in a city park, Phil and I found what says is his most favorite mushroom of all. Seems like the perfect combination of rain and sunshine, and temperature this year. We've been finding a lot of mushrooms every weekend, whether we're trying to or not!

Phil with shaggy parasols

Chanterelles from two weekends ago

Bee Allergy

Photos clockwise from top, left: Josh at Ozone, honey bee outside my house, my hand about halfway to the full size (~24 hours after sting), a cartoon of an epi-pen from http://www.epipen.com/page/how-to-use-epipen-auto-injector-index)

Last weekend Josh was passing through Oregon, heading up to Washington for his next NOLS course. We went to Ozone on Saturday, and while we were approaching the climbing area, a bee just decided to sting me. Maybe someone pissed it off, coming down the trail in front of us, but one second Josh and I were chatting, and another second, I was jumping up and down, swearing. The honey bee "left it's butt in me" as I've been telling folks, and it was a good thing Josh was there, because he directed me to "scrape" the butt out to avoid getting more of the poison in my hand. I was stung twice at Ozone when I went climbing with Ian and Graham earlier this summer. Maybe that was enough bee juice for my body this year. By the time Josh and I got home, my hand started getting big.

I took two rounds of Benadryl, made a pen mark when the swelling hit my wrist, called my insurance companies free nurse line when the swelling was a third of the way up my arm in the morning, went to see a doctor at the advice of the nurse line, took 60mg of prednisone and waited six hours, then called the nurseline again when I couldn't feel my hand anymore, and then headed for the ER when the nurse told me he wouldn't have waited that long if it were him, and I was starting to lose circulation in my hand, which was obvious from the cold fingers, and white hand. After several hours in the ER, and some humming and hawing over my ridiculously small veins that are almost impossible to get blood out of, let alone stick an IV into for such a small problem, the folks turned my arm into a real topographic map (watching for more swelling), and I waited. Then I got a cool lesson in histamine and the allergic response in the body, reminding me of those funny H2-receptors, blah blah blah - at that point I was really zoned out on Benadryl, but still really enjoying the geeky talk about why I would be taking Pepsid (an antacid) to help lessen the reaction.

Now I have to carry an epi-pen. That's the funny thing about the allergic response to an antigen like bee stings - the reaction can get worse after every exposure. This time it was my hand, and most of my arm all the way up to my elbow that swelled into a painful, red balloon. And next time, I'll have this handy dandy epi-pen around in case I get stung on my neck. Ew.

Update...

Well, there's not really anything to update on. Since my last post...

• Things have been CRAZY hectic with work. I've been working out of the Portland office the past couple weeks, instead of working from my bedroom. I do love the bike commute in to Northwest (lets me have 60 minutes of riding per shift), but working from home with Kitty is nice too.
• I put clipless pedals on my bike. Woohoo!
• I made the fourth batch of pesto this summer. All from my little planter box of five basil plants. (Another harvest will be coming this week)
• Phil and I went to his ten year high school reunion. Yup. He's old. Keith and Ashley were there, and it was great to meet new people and see old faces.
• I ate Korean food for the first time! At Phil's reunion I met Kate. She was also adopted from Korea, and we've hung out a couple times since the reunion. The first time was so she and her boyfriend, Ky, could teach me about Korean food. Yum!!!

• Last week, I got to babysit Caitlyn for a day. ALWAYS a blast to spend time with the munchkin.

• On Friday, I went to Seattle for the first time. Phil and I attended a party for Urbanspoon.

• On Sunday, Dad and Jill and I rode in the Providence Bridge Pedal. This was the driving motivation behind me getting the new pedals, and boy was I glad to have them! I'm still super tired.

• And, last but not least.... I bought a MacBook Pro! I'll go ahead and give another "woohoo" to that.

The North American Organic Beer Festival

Last weekend, Phil was in town, and we made it over to Overlook Park for the North American Organic Beer Festival with my friends Saba, Owen and Kira. While there were a lot of beers (FULL beer list here), and we tried as many as we could, there were a couple that really stood out. The Widmer, Teaser XPA was innnnnnncredibly refreshing and crisp, and had a ton of floral aromas that I normally don't like, but fell in love with. So that was the light - the dark one that I really loved was from Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing. Their People's Porter was delicious, though I don't remember why. I just kept a notepad of all the beers I tried, and rated them on a scale of 1-10, and I gave that particular porter an 8, so I must have really enjoyed it.

Grandma Eileen's 90th Birthday

Road Trip!

Sunday flower walk winner

Bakery Bar - yummmmm

Woke up this morning and had a lazy walk around my neighborhood taking pictures of beautiful things. I wound up at Bakery Bar for coffee and one of my favorite scones - cheddar scallion (sans the bacon today).  The place was packed, as usual, so I asked to share a table with a guy and his son outside. After chatting for a while, he identified himself as the owner. Him and his wife opened the NE Glisan location this November, and you might have remembered how excited I was... They now have an expanded breakfast menu, and I can't wait to try a brekkie sandwich with egg and bacon.

 

 

Staying Active

Since I've started working from home, it's been really important to try extra hard to get outside in the mornings, and my days off. I have been volunteering a lot, sometimes two organizations a day, on my days off.  A couple weeks ago, Elizabeth and David and I decided to spend a sunny day up at the Portland Japanese Gardens. Elizabeth is a much stronger cyclist than I am, and riding up the hill to essentially, the top of Washington Park, with her was quite challenging. I was happy to have made it up without dying. 

Six a.m. in the airport

Here I am in the airport at six a.m., sharing a table with some weirdo who just threw away his whole breakfast.   I flew up to Vancouver to spend the weekend with Phil, but now my weekends are Thursday through Sunday.  This means I'm hopping the seven a.m. flight back home, in order to be at my desk, clocking in, by noon.  

To avoid any sort of Valentine's Day crowd/rush situation, we found the perfect solution! We ate at a sushi restaurant that does not take reservations.  The wait was probably no worse than any other Saturday night in Vancouver, and the food was increeeeedible.  After our first plate of seven different slabs of fresh fish, and two tuna rolls, we ordered more fish, barbequed eggplant, and squid with garlic and lemon. But then I was still feel nibbley, as usual, so then we ordered another bottle of sake, and some tempura. Incredibly fresh fish, and the best part of the meal - the biggest motivating factor for Phil taking me - was the real, fresh wasabi. If you're not aware already, the wasabi you get in restaurants, and with your to-go sushi at Safeway is really horseradish, Chinese mustard, and a lot of green food coloring.  A fun part about eating the real wasabi, is surprising way they sneak it in on you.  It has to be served between the fish and the rice, so as not to become oxidized, which would cause it to lose flavor.  Between the fish and rice means you don't see it, don't know how much of it is there until you're chewing, and then BAM. Wasabi heaven. 

Phil and I also went skiing while I was in town.  It hadn't snowed in three days, so we opted to go night skiing, figuring the snow wouldn't be any better paying for full day tickets. I brought my boots, but left the skis at home in order to fly carryon, and this meant demoing some fun, shaply skis from Cypress Mountain. Even though we got to the mountain around seven p.m., we had an excellent time, and got some good turns in. 

Sunday Morning

Bagels

It's quite cold out, so leaving the house seems somewhat unreasonable. Until there is snow in the mountains to be skied, that is.  David and Elizabeth were dropping their car off at Les Schwab this morning, like everybody else in Portland, and were told they would have a 5 hour wait. (Les Schwab is nextdoor to my house.) So, they popped in to say hello. I made coffee and Elizabeth and I busted out some bagels while David finished up their laundry. Same recipe that I always use.

My Weekend

Sick Week, Inside Projects

I've been really sick with the flu for most of the week. Started out as one of those innocent colds that come sneaking up on you with some sneezing and sniffles, but hits you full on with fever aches and migraine and awful congestion. After spending a few days in bed, I missed out on all my commitments for the weekend just opting to take it easy, but my friend Rachel did come brave the sick air and spend some time entertaining me. . 

We walked around outside and got some fresh air in the gorgeous fall colors, and we made some cool things around the house.  I made this pot holder this morning out of fabric scraps. The pink and brown was an old dress that I grew out of, but I loved the pattern so I kept it around to cut up. Rachel worked on the bagels while I was sewing the impromptu hot holder. They were the best homemade bagels I have ever had! They were all crispy and crunchy on the outside, with super gooey nice insides. Yum!