A Little Night Music

It seems like KaRyn just got home for Korea and she's already on her way to D.C. But she's a smart girl so at her going away party, she asked each of us to bring her a mix CD for her cross-country drive. I've made that drive a few times and it can be dangerously sleep-inducing. Do you remember that VW commercial from a few years ago, with the convertible and Pink Moon by Nick Drake? While I don't recommend too much night driving on long trips,that was the feeling I was going for. Relaxed and happy and hopeful for the future. Well mostly, I might have thrown in more than a few Portland bands so she doesn't forget us. Here's a copy of mine if you want it. (click link to download)



Go On, Say It - Blind Pilot
Paul's Song - M. Ward
Wires - Coconut Records
My America - A Camp
Help I'm Alive - Metric
Rock & Roll - Eric Hutchinson
The Reeling - Passion Pit
White Daisy Passing - Rocky Votolato
Vermont Avenue - Ferraby Lionheart
Hurt Feelings - Flights of the Conchords
You Don't Know Me - Ben Folds featuring Regina Spektor
Dimmer - Bishop Allen
Beat (Health, Life and Fire) - Thao With The Get Down Stay Down
Hearts On Fire - Cut Copy
Airstream Driver - Gomez
Breaking It Up - Lykke Li
All My Days - Alexi Murdoch

I'm Thankful for Family and Friends

Just a short post today to say how thankful I am for phones and email that let me keep in touch with my far-away family. And for close-by friends who have become my second family.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Last Knight

Last night I...

• Had one of the best BLTs ever at Gotham Tavern (the bread was a perfect balance of toasty but not mouth-shredding)
  
• Saw lots of previews, the best of which was The Mummy 3 (how sad!)
  
• Spent almost 3 hours watching the new Batman (currently rated #3 of all time at IMDB, perhaps a little too high, but it was really good)
  
• Mourned Heath Ledger (again!)
  
• Apologized to the poor guy next to me when I laughed way too much at the Joker looking for hand sanitizer (not a spoiler, I promise)
  
• Was reminded of how much I like William Fitchner (can't think of anything parenthetical for this one but didn't want to break the trend)
  
• Couldn't decide between Aaron Eckhart and Christian Bale (sadly neither of them was asking me to choose)
  

Vive la France!

Yesterday was Bastille Day. I was lucky enough to live in France about 10 years ago. So I got mes amis together and went to Le Happy. What better way to celebrate the revolution than eating delicious crêpes and enjoying the disco ball. I had the salad crêpe but switched out the gorgonzola for some chèvre. It was, quite possibly, the best crêpe I've ever had. And then I had the strawberry and nutella crêpe too. We all had at least a salé (savory) and a sucré (sweet) crêpe. Afterwards, I was reminded of this saying:
J'ai bien mangé, j'ai bien bu, j'ai la peau du ventre bien tendue (It's better said out loud, it rhymes. Literally: I ate well, I drank well, the skin on my stomach is well-stretched)



Can you tell I'm excited I just learned how to do accents on my keyboard?!

One More Reason I Love Portland

Portland has amazing fireworks shows! I've been to a few in the past, the Fort Vancouver show, the Oak Hills Neighborhood show, but the best, for being uniquely Portland, is the show on the Willamette River. They set up barges in the river and shoot fireworks off of them. The fireworks light up the whole city and reflect in the river. I love that it feels as if the entire city is out, celebrating with you. I met up with friends for a BBQ and then took the streetcar to the waterfront. We found an open area, set up our blanket, and about 5 minutes later, the fireworks started. We had just enough crazy, drunk people around us to make it interesting but they we feeling very patriotic and just kept yelling, "America!" and "Freedom!" We thought about yelling "Beauty" and "Truth" a la Room with a View. Afterwards, we got appetizers and dessert at Lucier. It's a beautiful restaurant, right on the waterfront. Everything we had was delicious or so I was told. I don't like creme brulee so I had to take everyone's word on that one. The outside seating was perfect. The plates and tea service were the prettiest we'd ever seen, an adult tea party. The valet was flirt-worthy. The waitstaff was friendly and knowledgeable, they even gave us a tour of the dining room so we could see the river that flows around the tables, the white wall with white grafitti carvings to represent the urban feel of Portland, and the mirrored, angled, dome to represent Mt Hood. It's a splurge but we're worth it.

Here are some fireworks photos from Sara's flickr.



P.S. If you go to Lucier, be sure to go to the bathrooms, they are gorgeous!

Wondering Where I Am?

This week I'm a guest blogger over at {frolic!}. Check it out.

Word Slingers

Tonight, the lovely Heather Roberts had people over to play Scrabble and sip tea. And even though her very detailed post, complete with photos and word lists, pretty much covers it all, it was such a delightful evening I just had to mention it myself.

We played two rounds, the first as sticklers for the rules. In that round the best words were maven, covens, and revamper.

Then we threw the rules and dictionaries (yes there were several) out the window. We could make up any words we wanted as long as we could pronounce it, define it, and use it in a sentence. Two of my favorites were grofecyz (prophecies you don't really like and make you kind of gruff) and blirreaz (when an oil spill makes the environment around it blurry. Although we liked this one so much we also applied it to anything blurry or blizzard-like). I also really liked Heather's use of 3 consecutive N's in a word I'm not sure I could spell again.

The tea was delicious, the popcorn was addictive, and I made scones. Yep, I could have just put the recipe here, but I'm trying to promote the other blog.

I'd Like to Thank All the Little People

Last night was The Oscars. In Portland, Elizabeth had a party each year. Now that I'm in SLC, I decided to have one of my own. I decorated my apt with lights around the ceiling and lots of sliver and gold stars hanging from the ceiling. I have 10 foot ceilings so this required a ladder, moving most of my furniture, and lots of up and down. I'm embarrased to say my legs are sore today.

I invited lots of girls and lots of guys. None of the guys came, Lame! But it also meant we could talk about fashion, whose dress made their butt look big, whose showed off back fat, and whose made their boobs droop. Of course we also liked a few. Diane Keaton looked better than she had in years. And Helen Mirren might just be the female Dorian Grey, she looks amazing!

We each had one "shhhh" we could use to get everyone to be quiet. Lena used hers on Kate Winslet, Annette used hers on Daniel Craig, I used mine on Cate Blanchett and Clive Owens. One by one, we all used ours. And then, George Clooney happened... We decided this called for drastic measures, an additional group "shhhh", but it probably wasn't necessary, we had all been appropriately shocked and awed by his hotness. And then silly Jennifer Hudson, didn't even pause to walk off with him. He had to chase after her! Although maybe she knew what she was doing, guys love the chase and he did give her an amazing smile once he caught up to her.

The food was delish, baked brie with apricots, shrimp cocktail, a cheese plate with grapes and crackers, cream puffs, tomatoes with balsamic vinegar, strawberry yogurt pie, chocolate raspberry bars, chicken satay, and crostini with caramelized onions, goat cheese, and walnuts. For more on that, go to The Clean Plate Club.

All in all, it was a wonderful night, so fun, lots of laughter, good food, and great friends!

The food, or what was left of it...

I took a picture of Kaylyn taking a picture, so meta. That's my front door in the background.

More of my living room and my beloved fireplace.

Light in the Darkness

Today marks the winter solstice, the official start of winter, the shortest, darkest day of the year. While that seems dreary, I've been counting down the days as I count the accumulating snowflakes.

See it also marks the start of days getting longer. Whenever I feel cold or tired of the snow, or missing the warm weather, I can just go to weather.com, look at the sunrise and sunset times and see that the days are actually getting longer. Summer is coming!

Today also marks Tamara's birthday. It's like God knew if the earth would be the darkest today, it would need her light, her optimism, her smile to brighten it up. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!That's not her! It's her cute dog Watson. I thought his picture would make her smile more.

All The Pretty Girls Go To The City

I'm not claiming anything about myself, I'm just quoting Spoon.

Did you miss me? Did you even know I was gone? I guess I'm not posting frequently enough to have my absence be very glaring.

I just spent about 5 days in NYC visiting my friend, Tamara. She has a great apartment up in Washington Heights. The best two things about it are that she can have pets and that it is big enough for me to visit.

I got there late Friday night/early Saturday morning. And after looking for the elusive parking spot back at Tam's and then staying up too late girl-talking, we had a hard time waking up and getting going on Saturday.

Saturday, after getting up after 1pm, we wandered through Greenwich Village and Bleeker street. I've been to NYC many times but without mountains to orient myself, I sometimes get turned around when I first surface from the subway. So it took us a while to figure out the right section of Bleeker street. Luckily, like most of life, good things happen even with the wandering.

A few years ago, I had been introduced to Beard Papa's, a great little cream puff shop from Japan with stores in NYC. Tam and I decided it was a must see and must eat. We googled it but then surprise, when we came out of the subway, there was one we hadn't even planned on. Cream puffs while wandering! Joy!

I had 2 goals, new necklaces and a new hat. I found a great red necklace while "lost."

We finaly made our way over to Bleeker St, visited lots of cute shops, a very popular Italian bakery with an even more popular bathroom, and then decided to wait in the line for some delcious thin crust brick oven pizza at John's. This is where I took my only picture of the whole trip. I carried my camera every day but I'm terrible at remembering to use it. And this is it, Tam and I eating pizza and our celebrity "sighting" Johnny Depp's picture above our table. Of course, his is the only face blurred out by the flash.
Sunday we went our separate ways and each met up with college friends for brunch. I've known Serge since my junior year when a girl in my poetry study group took me to meet the guy she had a crush on. Sadly, her story with him didn't last very long, but he and I have remained friends. I couldn't make it to his wedding in February to the "Lovely Sabrina" due to being a poor student. Catching up with him over strawberry waffles, delicious. We then met up with Tam, went to H&M, where Serge offered to give his opinion on clothes and hold my purse. He had told me he was The World's Best Husband, and while I am not prone to believe self-proclaimed titles, after this, I might just believe him.

We then went over to 6th and 26th, an area full of antique stores and flea markets. Again, cute necklaces for sale and I was buying.

That night we went over to Union Square and again, just wandered. Trader Joe's recently opened there and anyone who knows me, reads either of my blogs, or has eaten at my house, knows, TJs is my favorite store and much missed now that I live in UT. But all that love wasn't enough to make me wait in the lines that wrapped around the entire store.

Monday, we met up for brunch with one of Tam's friends who was also visiting NYC. The food wasn't great but Ashley was lots of fun. Later that day, we stumbled across the City Bakery (stay away in Feb) we had heard of and knew they were famous for their "hot chocolate." I have to use quotes because it was really tepid chocolate soup. We each had about 3 sips and were done. Done with the "hot chocolate," done with food until much later that evening, and done with feeling good for the next few hours.

When we were ready for food, we were also ready to stop walking and relax. We decided to go to Whole Foods and get a smattering of favorites, go back to Tam's and then later go out to see Marie Antoinette. At Whole Foods, in addition to the delicious Indian samosas, Italian grilled veggies, Greek pasta salad, Thai coconut chicken, and French orangina, I had a REAL celebrity sighting. I saw, are you ready for it...

Sarah Chalke, from Scrubs! I know, not as great as Johnny Depp but she was a real person.

Dinner was delicious. We decided to get candy for the movie and although they seem to have taken over the city, we knew there wasn't a Duane Reade near the movie theater so we stopped at a bodega in Tam's Dominican neighborhood. And what should I find, Coffee Crisp. Canadian candy in a Dominican store in NYC, I love serendipitous moments.

Marie Antoinette? Meh. The movie got out so late that the next day we decided we would rather sleep that have a fancy brunch, although Tam did make some fancy pancakes. And that was it, we went to JFK, wondered if it was open because there were about 3 other cars there, and I flew back to SLC.

Thanks Tam for a great visit. Can't for March in Mexico!

Smiling About The Land of Smiles (That's Thailand)

One year ago today, after taking my finals early, cleaning my cute little studio apartment where I had lived for 3 years, and moving all my stuff into the garden shed of the lovely and generous Tamara, I got on a plane to Southern Thailand. After over 40 hours on planes and layovers, I reached my final destination, Khao Lak.

I know I have written about this before but not a day goes by that I don't remember that trip, think about the people there, the changes I hope are still happening, notice sunspots and freckles I got while there, wear some cute shoes from Thailand, or look at pictures I took. So here are a few pictures...

The view from my hotel room. How lucky was I?!

My first day, going to the worksite. The rainy season if you couldn't tell.

Mixing cement with some visiting monks

Yep, that's me, twirling fire on the beach

I'm posed like a dressed down Vanna White but I built this whole wall all by myself. My eyes are closed from fatigue, it's either that or the dust from sawing concrete blocks in half is in my eyes.

Jaime and me after a long, hard day of work

Thanking Linda the Elephant for the adventure

Dinner and a Movie...

Several months ago I thought it would be fun to have a dinner and a movie club, kinda like a book club, that gets together to watch a movie and have a potluck dinner where all the food somehow ties to the film.

Last night we watched All the President's Men. Several people brought food but did not yet have an idea how to tie it to the movie so here is what we came up with, some are admittedly quite a stretch:

Coconut shrimp - served at the Sundance restaurant, owned by Robert Redford, who plays Bob Woodward, one of the reporters

Hummus and pita bread - from the Middle East, the current cause of much political controversy over war.

Brushetta - sometimes made with rosemary. The first explanation about the missing 18 1/2 minutes of White House tape was that the secretary, Rose Mary Woods, had accidentally deleted it.

Caesar salad - Nixon and Caesar were both powerful would-be dictators who were both removed from power (although Nixon resigned just before impeachment).

Vietnamese chicken salad - one of the reasons Nixon bugged the DNC was over the anti-Vietnam war issues.

Tiramisu - mentioned in Sleepless in Seattle, which was written by Nora Ephron, who was married to Carl Bernstein, one of the reporters

Apple pie - all American

Chocolate chip cookies - yummy just like Robert Redford

Sparkling peach juice - Nixon's almost impeachment

I loved/was amazed by this movie. It was intriguing and kept my attention even though there were no chase scenes, no one was killed, and there was almost no music to intensify the stressful scenes. And it definitely echoes some of the political concerns of our times.

Any ideas for next time?