One Month Sterling-O-Versary

Tomorrow, it'll be one month since my brush with the Scapegoat tattoo gun, and you'll be pleased to see that The Honourable Sterling has healed up nicely:

Such a handsome fellow!

I just had a look at the first photos I posted of him and bloody hell, was my arm swollen or what?! It sure is nice to have a normal-sized shoulder again, and be done with the constant moisturising and itchiness. Hoorah for being able to use my arm as usual!

The colours have held really well, although I am debating whether or not to get the red leaves on the back of my arm touched up as I think they're a teeny bit patchy (but then maybe that's just what they look like when I'm wildly craning my neck trying to see over my shoulder?) - I gather that red is a notoriously tricky colour to tattoo/heal evenly and it tends to fade faster than other colours, so it is to be expected. Here's a fun fact for you - Google just told me that depending on the type of pigment your tattooist uses, red ink tends to cause a greater number of allergic reactions than other colours, and apparently if you have a seafood allergy you may also react to red ink. Who knows if that's actually true?! Fortunately, it seems I am neither allergic to red ink nor seafood, and I'd guess that the vegan-ness of Scapegoat means their pigments aren't made out of crabs or some other equally gruesome thing. Anyway, I think I've had enough of looking after new tattoos for the moment, so I'll save any thoughts of touch ups for home. Now, I am just going to sit back and enjoy his feathery loveliness!

Mid-week Round-up: Addendum

Forgot to mention...

... we had hot dogs for lunch. Americans do good dill pickle!

Mid-week Round-up

What's happening here this week?

1. You may remember tales of railway wanderings over the weekend - I neglected to mention that we decided to resurrect one of Paul's childhood pastimes and leave a quarter on the track, to see if we could come back and find it after the next train. We went back down to the tracks today, and look what we found. Flat as a tack!

2. Tonight, like the good little hausfrau I am, I went to a bookclub at the Grass Roots Bookstore downtown. We talked about The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker, and while I didn't love it, it is always (or, usually) a pleasure to talk to people and to listen to people talk about books. I was also able to gather proof for my theory that all book club meetings must include a person who says "I just didn't get the point of it", and a person who relates the plot of the book to overly personal details of their own lives, usually starting sentences with "I had a therapist once who said...". Still, that's to be expected (according to theory, anyway), so it didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the conversation. Next month's selection, A Novel Bookstore, looks good so I think I'll go back again if we're not out of town.

3. It wouldn't be a blog post without a food photo, would it? After book club, I met up with Paul and we headed to Squirrel's, the irresistibly-named downtown brew pub. I think I came across this place by googling "squirrels Corvallis", back when we first got here and I was trying to work out where all the damn squirrels were hiding. Google couldn't tell me, but it did lead us to a nice veggie burger, some nachos and a sample of Rogue Hazelnut Brown Ale. I have to say, this town is a beer lover's paradise and I am making a poor effort to sample all the brews on offer! Perhaps that should be next week's project?

Sunday Something-Or-Other - The Final Installment

Lazy title, I know. After coffee and a couple of hours of reading at the downtown Beanery, it was time to head home. We took a roundabout route to explore more gardens and train tracks.

More lovely nature strips 

Chickens! Let it be noted on the record that these guys are eating pizza and breadsticks from our favourite Corvallis pizza joint, American Dream. 

 The chickens' roomies

 Railway puddle ducks

 We wandered down the tracks a bit, to see what was happening in the land of mass transit. We're not sure if this rolling stock has been idling here for a while or if it's just making a brief stopover. Whatever it's up to, it was pretty cool to be able to nose around without being arrested!

I had hoped that a real live train would go past while we were there, but it wasn't to be. 

Back on our side of the tracks, I returned to garden-spotting 

More poultry friends - there were only a couple of chickens out when we first stopped, but as soon as I pulled out the camera, these three ladies came running up to us. Obviously not camera shy! 

 Some more cherry blossoms for you, on the corner of Monroe

Taking a leaf out of the chickens' book, it was American Dream salad for dinner

Still digesting that giant lunch sandwich, we opted for greenery for tea. We were planning to hit the gym tonight, but we ditched that in favour of watching the breaking news and presidential press conference about Osama bin Laden. This blog is a place for photos of food, cats, and leafy mountains, so I won't get into that (unless it was the cats across the street letting off those fireworks earlier...). Big news, anyway.

Sunday Lunch

After our leisurely garden-seeking meander, we arrived downtown for a late lunch at around 3pm.

SW 2nd Street

We'd been meaning to check out the Old World Deli for a while - they get rave reviews for their sandwiches and also claim to have the World's Greatest Brownies.

 Of course, I was completely charmed by the set up - big communal tables, weird murals on the walls and ceilings, and a window into their in-house brewing operation? Yes please!

 Also a big yes please to the sandwiches - these were excellent. Above we have a classic vegetarian on sourdough, and below...

 ... the Nutty Vegetarian on marbled rye - this one, with cheddar, alfalfa, apple, sunflower seeds, mayo and mustard, was my favourite. You just can't go wrong with apple, cheddar and mustard - a dynamite combination!

 Heading back out into the sunshine...

... to share a takeaway brownie by the riverfront. The Old World Deli is covered in signs about their "World's Greatest Brownies". Of course, I could only interpret that as a challenge! Having not yet sampled all the competition (despite my best efforts) I can't weigh in on the World's Greatest tag, but I will say that this brownie was perfectly delicious.

Sunday Strolls

A lovely Spring day here, perfect for a stroll downtown and some snaps of one of my favourite features of Corvallis - gardens. I took so many photos today that I'm going to split them into a few posts to save your attention spans (you can take a break in between to check for the latest Osama v Obama news). First, the walk downtown. We live about 15 blocks west of the downtown area, and I love it how those 15 blocks pretty much all look like this:

One of my favourite Corvallis houses 

Gardening on the nature strip seems to be the done thing here - most nature strips around here are planted with flowers, or raised beds filled with herbs or vegetables.  

Once again, I love it that you can walk down streets like this and suddenly see train tracks in amongst all the greenery. Also, look at that freaking blue sky!

HELLO FRIEND!!! 

My hero