Freaky Friday

What a weird day.

We spent the afternoon sipping coffee at Powell's in Portland...

 ... and the small hours of the morning wandering around downtown Las Vegas.

It's hot in the desert, so iced alcoholic beverages are essential for maintaining hydration

 Our hotel 

The rule is we can only play slot machines that are in some way related to cats. 

 

Turns out the cat rule really isn't that limiting - casinos cater to all, even crazy cat people

 

 Vegas baby, woohoo!

All that cat gambling sure does work up an appetite - only in Vegas would $4 grilled cheese be so readily available at 3am!

Fun Times on the Greyhound

We went back up to Portland for the evening on Saturday to catch one of Paul's favourite bands, Margot and the Nuclear So & So's. It must've been Crazy Day on the Greyhound, because the trips there and back were both pretty colourful - I guess the threat of apocalypse had people on edge! On the packed bus ride up, there was heated debate amongst some of our fellow commuters about whether Tinkerbell, of Peter Pan fame, was a full-on slut, or just a sexy flirt - these are the big questions, people! This conversation proceded with much evidence from both sides, at great length - I gather it was inspired by one of the debaters' adult-sized Disney pyjama pants.

I'm not sure who won in the end, as we fled the bus terminal for the burbs in search of lunch. Dedicated, as always, to the pursuit of snacks! This time we tried out Salvador Molly's, a haven of spicy delights from all over the world.

First up, the Great Balls of Fire - these spicy habanero cheese fritters are something of a local eating challenge. They're so hot that you win a tshirt and get your photo on the Wall of Flame if you successfully consume all five of them and all of their toxically spicy sauce. The waiter very sagely advised us to start off with two rather than the full five, since we were Great Balls novices. Now, generally I'm up for an eating challenge (particularly if it involves great volumes of cheese, chocolate or peanut butter), but I'm not really one for very spicy food, and with a night of fun ahead I took one bite of these fiery morsels and hastily bowed out, leaving Paul to soldier on, to brave and tearful effect - by which I mean, he was very tough and manly, but fuck, they were some hot balls. Adam from Man vs Food has a hairier chest than both of us, but to be fair I think he does have a something of a professional advantage!

Fortunately I still had mastery of my taste buds and enjoyed the main course - Barbados Mac Pie for me (how good is it when a great food (mac & cheese) is combined with another great food (pie)? It's great, let me tell you!). 

And the Chiles Rellenos Del Norte, with some kind of delicious corn bread, for Paul. It was tasty, but I'm not sure he was able to experience the full effect!

After lunch, we hot-footed it (har har) back towards downtown to try out a completely genius dessert concept store, Pudding on the Rice. This country has a zillion cupcake bakeries, gelato stands and frozen yoghurt shops, and I salute the person who decided that the humble and oft-neglected rice pudding deserved join the world of speciality dessert retail. 

Best enjoyed in the park at dusk! Somehow I resisted the siren call of the Peanut Butterfuco and instead went for the Bittersweet Symphony (bittersweet dark chocolate) and the Cinnamon Kane. Twas a superb combo, and very cooling on the digestive tract after Salvador Molly's. 

Paul opted for the fruitier route, with Bananarchy Cream Pie and Strawberry Fields Forever. Nom!

We found a window full of Sterlings on our way to the show.

A pre-show tipple, to wash down all that tasty, tasty, burning food.

Waiting for showtime 

Margot & Co 

 They were the support act, so presumably not everyone in the room was familiar with them. At one stage someone called out, "Tell us about yourselves, you hot men!", and the singer, always a little surly, replied, "We're Aerosmith. Thanks for coming early." If you're going to be a cranky artiste, it helps to have a quick comeback!

They played a pretty rock-y set, which I gather is more in the vein of their new stuff, as well as some of their older folky numbers. It's a shame they didn't get to play for longer, but I guess that is the lot of the support act! Since we weren't particularly into the main act, we headed back to the Greyhound once Margot finished, and thus ensued one of the weirder bus rides of our lives - between the raving Tourettes guy and the coked-up twitching girl with the neck tattoos, it seemed like perhaps we hadn't survived the Rapture after all. I'm pleased to report though that we survived, and unlike all the other poor people who were trapped on that bus all the way to San Diego (SAN DIEGO! That is a REALLY long bus ride), we made it home without losing our minds. Now, who wants to become a Pudding on the Rice franchisee with me?

Portland Weekend

This weekend, we went up to Portland to meet Georgia! YAY! Travel buddy AND professional photographer (which explains why these photos are so great - I'm sure you can tell which are G$'s and which mine - actual depth of field, anyone?). Here are a few snapshots of what we got up to:

First stop, Stumptown Coffee. Where else?

Finally found the latest issue of The Gentlewoman. Where bookstores and newsagencies have failed, Stumptown's hipster-ish magazine selection prevails! 

After re-caffeination, we met up with Georgia's friend Brighid, who, being a local, found us a lovely downtown watering hole and post-beverage crepes. Unfortunately I was just too hungry to stop and photograph the crepes, so you'll just have to believe me when I say that happened. Crepes! In the middle of the night! Where in the world can you find moustachioed gentlemen making crepes out of a tiny window at 1am?

One thing led to another, and we went to another moustachioed gentleman at a window and ordered giant pizza. As you do!

On Saturday night we hit up the food carts for dinner. I broke my rule about not eating Thai in this country (because it generally seems to be bland and awful) and was pleasantly surprised. Just goes to show, food tastes better when it's made in a van!

We passed this stony tribute to the many mountains of Oregon, and I couldn't walk away without a picture. Yes, I am 12 years old. 

A very impressive booze wall, complete with rolling ladder. 

Some lessons about Pickleball - it's a real thing, look it up. 

A final cup of Stumptown coffee.

I gave the camera a bit of a rest this weekend, so I don't have photographs of an excellent grilled cheese at The Original or a lovely shopping-ish stroll down NW 23rd St, but rest assured it was all very pleasant! We're back in Corvallis now and we've got a couple of trips planned while Georgia is here, so stay tuned for more exciting adventures!

Epic Road Trip of Awesome: Portland

It isn't really fair to call this a Portland post - we had a lazy Saturday morning of browsing around downtown Seattle, so by the time we made it back to Portland it was late afternoon, leaving us only a short window for pre-show snacking before it was time to hit the queue like over-excited 15 year olds for Bright Eyes at the Crystal Ballroom. If you're only going to fit in one meal in Portland though, it may as well be a Deluxe Grilled Cheese at Dot's Cafe, one of Portland's many dark and dingey late-night bar/diner/cafe establishments (it is apparently too cool to have a website, so you're just have to imagine us eating our lunch in a booth in the dark):

 

It's the herbed cream cheese that does it

Filled with delicious cheese, it was time to head to the show. Lucky we got there a couple of hours early, as the line was almost around the block when we joined it. 

 

I won't crap on too much about Bright Eyes - you all know that they are my favouritest favouritest band, and I'm sure you're not surprised to hear that I've never been happier to queue up for two hours in the cold to get a good spot as I was on Saturday night. Portland was kind to us and even held off on the rain while we waited.

 

 The Crystal Ballroom was originally opened as a Cotillion Hall in 1914, and still has many glorious fixtures of the era (including floors that shake terrifyingly when the room is full of excited kids - according to Wikipedia this is because of its sprung flooring, which is designed to give more bounce for ballroom dancing. Who'd've thunk?). The chandelier, decorative cornices and murals on the walls were a great distraction while we waited through the total yawnfest of a support band.

And then to the main event - 

 

Needless to say, they were completely amazing. The new album really lends itself to a huge, full-band sound, and with the usual suspects as well as a second drummer and second keyboardist in tow, the sound was massive. My ears may not ever recover! 

 

 

Best of all though, the two and a half hour long set included about half, maybe more, of the new album and a ton of old stuff, including a few songs off Fevers and Mirrors that I never thought would see the light of day, and a couple of great b-sides. I nearly weed my pants when they played The Trees Get Wheeled Away, and Poison Oak, which is one of my all-time favourites, almost reduced the whole theatre to grateful tears.

We had a great spot so we took a lot of photos. I may put them all up in a set on flickr, but for now here are a couple more for your delectation (Maddy, I suspect you'll be the only one interested in more pics!):

One way to stave off post-amazing band depression is to make sure you have tickets to the show the following night, and that's exactly what we did. We headed straight to bed because the next morning we had to be up early for the long, long drive to Arcata, CA for the next leg of the trip and... more Bright Eyes! 

Tattoo Tuesday

I couldn't think of an alliterative but factually correct title for this post so you'll have to deal with the punchy-sounding but inaccurate one above - this was in fact, Tattoo Wednesday. Yesterday, I headed up to Portland for my long-awaited tattoo booking with Henry Rodriguez of Scapegoat Tattoo. I arranged this from home a few months ago and have been counting down the days ever since! 

I didn't have time to do much apart from coffee and some brief bookshopping at the legendary Powell's City of Books, but we'll actually be back in Portland on Saturday so I'm sure I'll be able to regale you with more of its wonders then (Voodoo Donut, for example!). I did manage to take a couple of funny snaps though - as ever, Portland was the sweet caricature of itself that we've all come to know and love (and secretly wish we lived in):

The most Oregonian bumper sticker of all time

 Site of a presumed hipster mugging

  

 You can't really tell in the photo, but this strip of shops is home to a vegan cafe, a vegan clothes and homewares store, a vegan grocery store, and finally the vegan tattoo parlour I was heading to (they use all cruelty free inks and other materials). Tofurkey, anyone?

 The shop is super cool inside, it has a bit of a Victorian feel to it. I was early so had plenty of time to wait around and admire their many steampunk fixtures and amazing classic tattoo flash.

And now to the whole point of the day - the tattoo. Maybe it makes me totally vanilla to say this, but you guys, it really hurt! I'm not sure if it was just because it's been a few years since my last one, or the size and placement of this one, but man, that was a long three and a half hours. Maybe I'm just not a punk anymore? Sad face! I was a bit of a shaky wreck once it was done, so I crawled around the block to a cafe to fortify myself with darjeeling tea and a bagel (as you do). After that, there was just enough time to get some much-needed fresh air on a long walk back to the bus station for the evening bus back to Corvallis.

And now the important part - I snapped these in the bathroom mirror this morning, so they're not the best. He's also still pretty swollen and icky, but once the redness and swelling clears up I think the colours are really going to pop, which is exactly what I wanted. Without further ado, photos!

Paul took one look at him and named him Sterling, which has already stuck. A most dignified name for a most dignified fellow.

When I look at him this morning I can't help but think, duh, of course it was painful - he's so elaborate and detailed, and the shading and colours are incredible. I'll take some clearer photos once he's healed up so you can see the full extent of his greatness! If you've seen my original images, you'll know he's pretty far away from where I was when I started thinking about this tattoo, but I'm so, so happy with him. Isn't he just awesome?!

A lot of advice gets passed around about being assertive when you're getting tattooed, and I guess that is useful to a point. An important addendum to that though, I would say if you've chosen an artist based on a body of work that you love (which I did - if you look at Henry's portfolio, you'll see he knows a thing or two about tattooing owls) you'll be lucky enough to have an artist at your disposal whose judgement you can really trust. Henry took my original idea and turned it into something that incorporates all the elements I wanted, but works so much better that anything I could've dreamed up. If you're in the Portland area and looking to get some ink, do check out Scapegoat Tattoo. I really can't recommend them highly enough.

And now I'm going to go lie on the couch until my arm feels less like it's going to snap off and run screaming into the distance!