Category: Lifestyle

Are We Going Too Far?

I love living in Portland with all its eccentricities that the show Portlandia depicts so perfectly.  But sometimes, I feel the State of Oregon goes a bit too far.  For example, on my way to take the kiddies to school, I saw something particularly strange that I later discussed with Amanda.  There was a Craigslist poster of a local man drinking a cup of coffee.  Seems innocent enough, right?  Until you read that the man in the photo – a self-described “casual home roaster and coffee geek” – has started making Kopi Luwak coffee beans (consumed and then expelled) for $30 a pound!

It might be all in fashion and all, and even actually be a delicious cup of coffee but I personally think that this is taking the eccentricities of Portlanders a little bit too far.  Still, feel free to disagree with me, as clearly a lot of my neighbors are doing!

New Place to Eat

Daniel has been reading these blogs recently in the hope of finding new eateries that we both might enjoy.  So he discovered one on all the great things in the world – aka Portland – and found a really funny-named restaurant Shut Up and Eat that he said we have to try. After I’d stopped chuckling at the title, I took a brief look at the menu and thought how me and the boys could devour one of the meatball subs – which is Pan-fried beef, veal and pork meatballs with red gravy and provolone.  Daniel said he could eat one of those alone!  There’s a lot of variety on the menu but the general idea seems to be very hearty meals. The prices look reasonable as well so we’re for sure going to try it – as a family – sometime soon.

Daniel Is So Cute!

So of course I was hoping for something nice for Valentine’s Day.  And Daniel kept telling me (like he does every year) that he doesn’t buy into all this commercial stuff and if he wants to show me he loves me he can do so any day of the year.  Normally we don’t do much (although the first year we were together – during our engagement – he did buy me chocolate hearts and take me out to a hotel for hot chocolate and cookies) but this year he surprised me.

He organized a babysitter, and booked a table at Shigezo which is a sushi restaurant in the neighborhood.  We both love sushi and what’s good about this place is that it offered a special for Valentine’s Day that was not nearly as expensive as all the other restaurants which are totally milking the opportunity as Daniel says.

It turned out to be really lovely actually.  We ended up not going cheap and getting the holiday special – because we both love sushi so much we just ordered a ton of that to share.  And then Daniel ordered a fun sweet sparkling wine for me, just to get us both in the holiday mood a bit without admitting to the fact that we were celebrating Valentine’s Day!  He is so very cute though and we both had a great time.

Music To My Ears

 

So, since Jayden really happens to like string music, we are considering going to the Mousai Remix concert – which is free (always more tempting) at the Ivories Jazz Lounge and Restaurant.  I’d never heard of this ensemble and then I read that it is very new.  The musicians are Emily Cole and Shin-young Kwon who have played violin with the Oregon Symphony as well as another violinist and a cellist.  They are to play Beethoven’s F Major Quartet, Op. 59, No.1 and Brahms C minor Quartet Op. 51, No. 1 – truthfully I’m not so familiar with these works and nor is anyone else in my family, but I know that as soon as Daniel’s dad puts on some classical music, he seems to really relax…

They are asking for donations (which is fine as it goes towards the Oregon Symphony Kinderjibzert fund which is used to try and have additional outreach performances in schools in the Portland area – so in a way, that will be benefiting us directly too.  Anyway I guess we’ll see how the day goes; it starts at 7 which isn’t too late for Jayden and my babysitter did say she’s available, so we’ll just how tired Jayden gets later on.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

 

I wish the weather would improve a bit already. I mean, I know this is what we should be expecting for this time of year and it isn’t exactly a surprise but that doesn’t stop me from wishing it would be a bit drier and warmer outside so that I could get out a bit more with the kids.  So today I checked the weather forecast and it seems that there is a relatively low expectation for rain so I’m going to have to use that to my advantage.  Friday doesn’t look as good but then Saturday seems like it’s going to improve again so if we don’t get around to doing much today (I always prefer to do stuff over the weekends as then we can do it as a family as neither Daniel nor I work), then at least we’ll have that.

Still, Michelle may come by with her two little girls and while it will probably be a tad too cold to play outside, at least she won’t get drenched coming over.  I know Jayden usually likes boys coming over but after a while complaining about Sarah they usually end up playing nicely.  And Ethan is just delighted there is extra company in the house – he’s such a playful little soul, despite me finding him a handful.  So, let’s hope the weather does something nice for us on Saturday and we can go to the park or something as a family.  Maybe even the Portland Saturday Market that we’ve never done yet altogether; we’ll have to see.