Keeping Busy

Busy weekend.

Friday evening, I met the architect at the SE Hawthorne Bridgeport Brewery. As usual, I beat him there (even though I had to take a bus!), and had enough time to get a good start on my Ebenezer Ale. Yum.

Unfortunately, I was not nearly as impressed with the food. The appetizer (spinach artichoke dip) was pretty good, but the soup I had (white bean) was rather terrible. White bean soup is usually my favorite, but I couldn’t eat more than a couple of bites. I had a chicken sandwich, I think, but it was incredibly forgettable, so that might not be right. The architect had the veggie/bean burger, and said that was pretty good, but his macaroni salad was terrible. We decided to give dessert a try and ordered the bread pudding. Blah.

So, I’ve decided that it is a great place to go for beer, but that’s about all it’s good for. Happy hour, not dinner.

Saturday was a fairly lazy day. We did go running in the morning, but spent the rest of the day reformatting my desktop. We (and by we, I definitely do not mean me) finally got everything going on Sunday. I did a great job of erasing the hard drive, and reinstalling the OS, but the driver installations conquered me. However, I did make brownies, something I’d never done before. They turned out quite well, and I think the architect was amply repaid for his hard work.

Saturday night, we were invited to a party! An archi-party, as once again, I was the only person that didn’t work in an architectural capacity. Our host works with my architect and was at our wedding party, although I didn’t get to visit with him much there. It started with dinner, and we didn’t know that, so we were a bit late.

We met at Jake’s something or other, and arrived just as the others were receiving their dinners. I wasn’t feeling very fishy, so I just ordered a beer and the French Onion Soup. The soup was great. The architect had the fish & chips (because they were out of his first choice – the tilapia), and although the chips were awesome, he said that the battered cod was good, but nothing special. After dinner (which was mostly paid for with a gift certificate our host had), we went to his apartment.

And it was awesome. When I was young and rather stupid, I always imagined that this was the type of apartment I would have when I was a starving writer living in Paris or New York. It was above the restaurant on the top floor. The building was very 20s. It was a studio with a sliding curtain to separate the bedroom and the living space. The kitchen floor was black & white tile. We listened to music, chatted (I admired his book collection) and drank some wine. Then, because our host had some fresh mint, he made mojitos. Then, because he was showing off his saffron vodka, we had vodka. Then, on Sunday, I had a headache. Because if all one has for dinner is soup, one should never have a beer, then wine, then rum, then vodka. That’s just stupid. However, we weren’t really stupid, since we did take MAX to his place.

It was a lot of fun, and our friend may even be joining us for Thanksgiving, which would be cool. We stayed at the mini-party until 1:30 (it really was just the three of us and another architect friend) and talked about all sorts of things.

Sunday was the day of bleh. We finally got moving at about noon (we’d been up since 8ish or so) and went to Elmer’s for breakfast. I love Elmer’s. I had potato pancakes, and that was just yummy.

I did all the Thanksgiving grocery shopping, and then made chili and cornbread (I needed cornbread for the stuffing, so why not just make extra and serve it with chili?). It was a good dinner. We didn’t do much in the evening, just lazed about.

It’s a weird week, as I do have to work on Friday. Tonight is finally remembering to pick up the dry-cleaning, because I really need pants. Also, a stop at the gym, I hope. Tomorrow night is knitting night (I’m hoping to finish Margaret’s hat this week). Wednesday, I’m hoping it will be nice enough to go running. Then, crazy Thursday. I am so excited; I’ve never done the big meal for my architect. We’re going traditional – turkey, potatoes & gravy, corn, cranberries, stuffing, homemade bread, and pecan pie. And, because I am a purist, everything, down to the pie crust, will be homemade.

One year, when I was living in Venice, my roommate Marcy & I did the feast, just for the two of us. Unfortunately, apparently neither of us knew how to cook Thanksgiving dinner for two, so we ended up with a feast for 10. Leftovers are good, though, right?

The only things I’m missing at this point are fresh sage (sold out! I was so upset) and lefse, which I can’t find anywhere. I’m not giving up hope yet, though. There has to be a Scandinavian store in Portland somewhere!

So – busy but happy. And looking forward to Saturday’s Barenaked Ladies concert, and the following weekend’s mini-honeymoon.

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