Tag: Portland

Gas Station

I love the look of this building, run down though it may be.  For the five-plus years I’ve lived in North Portland, this has been a rough-around-the-edges car repair place.  From the looks of the RV parked on the lot, I surmised that the owner lived on site.  The whole lot was always full of rusted out cars.
 
So imagine my surprise one day when I noticed that everything was gone.  What happened?  Did the owner die?  Run out of money?  Decide to see the world?  Retire?  Also, what happened to all those non-working cars?

There’s a for-rent sign, so maybe something new will appear there.  I doubt it though.  I see a tear-down in the cards for this lot.

Community Sing-Along

It’s the last Saturday of Spring Break, I’ve got a dress to finish ASAP, food to make for Easter tomorrow, and potatoes to plant today.  I also need a nap.  I have no time to sing along with Pink Martini in Pioneer Square.  
But guess what I did?  I didn’t work on the dress.  I didn’t get all the food made.  But I did plant potatoes, nap and sing along with Pink Martini in Pioneer Square.
The first 300 people got songbooks.  And very nice songbooks they were, too.  They had words AND piano music.

We had the bonus of having both China Forbes AND Storm Large lead us in song.  Also, the Von Trapps were there (four fresh-faced, college-looking members).  And former Governor Barbara Roberts was up on stage too, singing her heart out.  Members of the Oregon Symphony were there too.  It was a very full stage.

In my haste to leave, I forgot my camera, so these photos are taken with the cell phone.  I was delighted at the earnestness with which this deadlocked-haired youth sang along with the lyrics.  I was simultaneously disturbed because the song we were singing at the time was “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” which apparently he’d never been exposed to?

In case of rain, local umbrella makers ShedRain gave away free umbrellas.  It was not at all rainy, but at one point everyone put up their umbrella for a photo op.
And we sang!  We sang nearly every song in the songbook.  The songs ranged from classic sing-along songs:  “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” “Home on the Range,” “On Top of Old Smoky.”  There were also songs from musicals:  “Edelweiss,” “Summertime,” “A Spoon Full of Sugar.”  And there were great surprises that were incredible sing-alongs:  “The Theme from All in the Family,” “Copacabana,” “The Gambler,” “Nine to Five.” Aside from all that singing we did, we got performances of Pink Martini songs, as well as Sound of Music songs performed by the Von Trapp singers.
At one point, Thomas Lauderdale referred to Edelweiss as one of five songs that everyone knows.  I emailed him, curious to see what he thinks the other four are, but he has not responded.  What five songs do you think everyone knows?

Sometimes first impressions are right.

When I graduated high school, I piled in a car with three other friends the day after our graduation and we drove to Oregon for a short vacation.  One of our observations about the Beaver State?  There are road signs everywhere!  They told us the speed limit was going to change, told us to turn our lights off after a tunnel and told us that there might be “Congestion.”  That was our favorite. We would always cough when we saw that one.

But walking to work today, I realized the incredible number of signs that were jammed in a two-block stretch.  This one has five, as does the next block.

I’m glad to see that, 20 years on, Oregon signs are still everywhere.

Transcendent Donut Experience

I head about this donut shop, something about quality ingredients, good donut, etc.  I like a good donut, so I wandered over.
The interior was industrial, spare and hip.
 
A statement.
 
More hipness.

Here’s the donut in question.

The verdict.  A-mazing.  Here’s how it usually works with me and donuts.  “I wish I had a donut.” I say to myself.  Then, being gainfully employed and mobile, I get myself one.  Sometimes I get them from the grocery store bakery case, sometimes from an official donut shop.  I eat the donut and it leaves me feeling a bit empty.  It was okay in the moment, but the moment has passed, leaving me with a bit of grease and a few coins shorter in my wallet.

Here’s what happened with this donut.  I paid my money, sat down and bit into it.  And it was chewy and substantial and burst with flavor.  The donut was a substance in and of itself, not just a carrier for the toppings. And the toppings!  The chocolate was rich, the coconut was toasted perfectly.  The whole experience was exactly what I’m looking for when I’m in the mood for a donut.  At $2.50, this donut wasn’t cheap, but I’ll take one of these over three of the standard donut, any day.

Fuller’s Coffee Shop


Fuller’s is a coffee shop located near where I work.  They make their own bread and jam and probably a lot of other things.  The waitresses are of the “hon” variety.  Everyone sits at the counter, because there are no booths.  They don’t take credit cards, their menus are laminated standard diner fare and you can buy rolls of mints and candy bars at the counter.  They open at six AM, god love ’em.  They are old-school all the way, the Pearl District before it was the Pearl District.  Fuller’s is a restaurant that delights me.

Somewhere along the way, someone created an iconic drawing of people sitting at the counter.  The original hangs on the wall of the restaurant, and the drawing has migrated to shirts, including the shirts the staff wears.  Today, walking by after they had closed, I caught one of the employees sitting at the counter, wearing the shirt picturing people sitting at the counter.  Beautiful.

House and lot.


I’ve had my eye on this house since I moved to the neighborhood because it’s right by downtown Kenton, plus it’s a tiny house on a huge lot.  It looked like old people lived there and I worried they would die or move before I could buy it from them.  I could do a lot with a lot that size, even with that big tree plopped in an inauspicious place.

Sadly, the house went on the market in September and sold pretty quickly.  And there are suspicious signs that the huge lot will soon be no more and there will be a tiny house on a tiny lot and a huge new infill house on what was once the rest of the lot.

Phooey.

Sand in the City

I joined Mom and Aunt Carol for breakfast at Mother’s and then we headed over to check out Sand in the City.  It was, frankly, underwhelming.  There were nine sand sculptures, a paltry amount, I thought, and I was not impressed by most of the scupture.  Perhaps my expectations were a bit too high?

Here’s an example.  The slogan is “branching out to help others” but the branches are not going out, they are going in.  It just didn’t work for me.
 

Kid’s on the block being sculpted into a block?  Eh.
 
I enjoyed the pun here, but look at all the blank space.
 
And this didn’t even look fully formed.
 
There was a Voodoo Donut on the Octopus, which I appreciated.
 
This display had the best detail from shrimp on the barbie to…
 
…an intricately sculpted welcome mat.

At this point my camera warned me I was running out of battery and as we had Sunday Parkways yet to do, I decided to stop taking pictures of mostly unimpressive sand sculpture.

The line!

Not wanting to pay expensive movie theater prices and wanting to support one of my favorite local theater  showing new releases, I took the #75 to St. Johns and headed toward the St. John’s Theater to see the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises.  And holy cow, there was a line!  I’ve never seen a line longer than 10 people at St. John’s, and this one stretched around the corner.  I was surprised this many people were out at 4:00 on a Friday, but there they all were.  Next time I will arrive a bit earlier on opening night.