Fluid

I am still trying to get over the river of phlegm I unleashed upon the world over the weekend, and so there is very little to report. Instead we thought that we would redecorate our blog. I like switching things up every now and then, but I always lose my sitemeter when I do. Drives me crazy.
So while we were in Tacoma, I spent most of my Friday evening curled up in a ball of self-pity and kleenex. At that point I had gone through two rolls of toilet paper, two small boxes of kleenex with lotion in them, two boxes of random medications I found in our junk drawer and the bottom of my purse, and a half bottle of nose spray. I was fairly miserable.
It was at this point that I decided playing with a Swiss Army Knife would be fun. I learned something valuable that I think I should pass on. When you are looking for something in one of those, be sure to open and CLOSE each attachment before opening another. What? You already knew that? Well, give me a break, I was mixing medications.
I just wonder what the cleaning lady was thinking the next day when she walked into that nightmare of bloody towels and wadded tissues. It can't have looked good.

Let's Play, Name That City

We took a really quick trip to Tacoma and Seattle this weekend. So quick, in fact, that we were home before 4 today. Our biggest goal was to hit Pike's Place Public Market, and you can see above that we did. The picture that shows Pike Place Fish Co. and tons of yummy looking crab, is the place you always see men throwing fish around on tv. We did get to witness this a couple of times, but never caught it on camera. Next time, I want to go up the Space Needle, but we weren't sure if you could take dogs in bags up there. Yes, we stuck Eliot in a bag and took him with us. He actually seemed ok with the whole thing. Sergio was less wild about having to carry him around when my shoulder gave out.
Seattle has gorgeous veiws in every direction. You can look one way and see Mt. Rainier, or another and see the bay and the Olympic range. We loved the market. There was so much food to choose from, but we actually only had one thing. We bought six little donuts from a stand that offered three varieties. They were the size of those powdered kind you buy in packages of eight, and they were made right there on a tiny conveyer belt. They were warm and crispy and maybe the most perfect donuts I have ever eaten.
Other than that we just wandered around and took in the city. A very successful trip.

Animal Cruelty

First we shave him, which is bad enough, but then we really drive home the humiliation.

Meat, Meat, More Meat, and a Little Gelatinous Cartilage!

We didn't hike, or check out a new area of Oregon, or ride our bikes downtown, but we did something adventurous, nonetheless. We decided to eat at a little Vietnamese noodle house on Saturday afternoon. When we visited Vancouver BC a couple of years ago, we really missed some of the food oppurtunities, like noodle places, and have wanted to right that wrong ever since.
This particular place is non-descript enough, just a tiny spot in the middle of a strip mall, though when we walked in, it was practically a foreign country. It isn't often that we are the minorities, but we were two of only four non-Vietnamese customers. Daunting.
When we got the menu there were nineteen options for Beef Noodle Soup. Here is an example...
P1. Fatty Brisket, Top Round Steak, Beef Tripe, and Soft Tendon.
Of the nineteen options they all had either tripe or soft tendon. Sergio ordered the item above, and I ordered P20. That would be Chicken Noodle Soup, if you were wondering.
The soup is made by putting dried rice noodles in the bottom of an enourmous bowl, adding slow roasted brisket, uncooked thinly sliced steak, uncooked soft tendon, and tripe, and then scalding beef broth is poured over it. By the time it arrives at the table, it is mostly cooked. At the table you add any of the following condiments they provide. Thai basil, jalapenos, lime, bean sprouts, three types of chili sauce, soy sauce, and a couple of things I didn't recognize.
Overall the experience was pleasing, and I would certainly go back. I will still be getting the chicken, though.
In case any of you haven't tried soft tendon, here is a useful way to know what it feels like, as it has no taste of its own. Suck all of the candy coating off of a Mike and Ike candy, then roll the gooey center around in your mouth for awhile. Now imagine it tastes sort of beefy. Yum.

Canine Snowball

Unexpected

Snow Day!

Ah, the smell of gas in the morning

Sergio and I have been suffering from a touch of homesickness lately. I think we are learning that when this happens, doing something familiar from your former hometown helps. It is why we sometimes eat at chain restaurants, or how we end up at a Barnes and Noble instead of a Borders. So this morning when we were talking about how we should spend our Sunday, Sergio had a ready answer. At around 11 am this morning, you could find us in Vancouver, Washington, pumping our own gas.

Portland, OR Weather

Baby Steps

I think if there were a contest for World's Biggest Time Wasters, we would be somewhere in the top five. I hate that we have strayed so far from the path of what this blog is supposed to be. At some point, I promise, we will start doing things again and telling you about them.
Sergio is watching the football game at a classmates, and I am typing this.
That was a step in the right direction.

A post! With Words!

We have watched every bowl game so far this year. Not necessarily every minute of every game, but at least part of them all. There are games involving schools that I didn't realize had football teams. That is one of the strange things that comes with living on the west coast. If you get up early enough and stay up until a normal time of night, you can watch everything. We got to see all of the Oklahoma v. Boise State game without having to try and stay awake, though it would have been well worth it.
There are a few other things about living on the upper west coast that we have found odd.
Despite the fact that you CAN watch football all day, nobody does
No good mexican food
No thunder
Multi-colored lightning, but only once so far
freezing fog
stagnant air warnings (what?)
Even though you can get great organic meat easily here, nobody eats it
The only food culture is beer and ice cream, sometimes together
Still can't figure out when shows come on with Pacific Standard Time
Catfish is the imported menu item
Seeing commercials that portray Arkansas as the desert
Trying to deal with the increased cost of living as Californians flock here because it is so cheap
Being way closer to Canada than to Mexico
And we still can't get used to not pumping our own gas