March 27th

Portland looked and smelled like spring all over the place, which I insisted on discussing with every person I met.  I have about a thousand more pictures like this on my camera...

March 26th

Tried out the hip new ice-cream shop on Alberta to finish my week-long food tour of Portland.  This is my free sample of black cherry and bone marrow ice cream...

which while it did not taste as much like blood as I expected, I passed on in favor of strawberry/balsamic/black pepper and some kind of chocolatey toffey flavor

photos following our discussion of how it's impossible not to look like a goober while eating an ice cream cone...

March 24th

hat! finished! 

March 23rd

 yummmm.  This is how my mornings used to start: 

Just like my tea-garden stampcard, this punch card is getting punched highly infrequently.  It's going to take me all year+ to make it around that horseshoe

March 22nd

I feel like all that I do when I come home is eat lots of food, which is kind of tragic but I don't even care because this ish was delicious.

March 21st

ZOMG it snowed while I was in Portland!!!1! school was canceled! roads were a tiny bit hard to navigate on the taller hills! it was pandemonium!   This was pretty strange for me as this snow was not preceeded by breaking local news reports about how there might be snow and what lots of Portland citizens thought about how there might be snow and what might happen if there was actually snow

I realize this is a terrible snow picture but I wasn't prepared, because of the lack of local news build-up

Arboretum Andy Goldsworthy style snow art

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March 20th

Night two of my home-cation, Laurelthirst Jackstraw night.  Check out that banjo player, who is also a neurosurgeon or some related jaw-dropping career.

And if bluegrass music wasn't enough, it was Bingo tuesdays next door!  I didn't win anything but I am now a bingo convert.  It takes so little skill!  The pot was won by the Bingo caller's mother which was too adorable to be shady.  (are you supposed to write bingo 'BINGO'? that feels aggressive...)

March 19th

I have the week before spring break off, and I get to spend the whole thing in Portland. It'll probably be my last visit for a while, mostly because I keep saying big 'see you in who knows how long' goodbyes and then showing up again a week or two later.   Starting the vacation week off right with a welcome home from Dove Vivi and Mimi!  delicious frying pan pizza, yay!

And then a return to old habits with wine and cookies (from zoops of course. I will never escape it's clutches) and chatting on the couch