life in the hipster capital: March 2012

Friday, March 16, 2012

A best friend is like a four leaf clover, hard to find and lucky to have.

I decided to get on this post as soon as possible bc who knows when i'll have the time to tell you about my adventures after today?
as you probably know, jenny came to visit during her spring break- here is a log of our adventures:
monday: jenny arrives at the airport around 2:20pm, once she found her luggage and put it in the car, we headed straight for multnomah falls. it was raining and chilly (way different from the 80 degree, sunny weather she had just come from) so we just stayed at the bottom of the fall to marvel at it's beauty for a bit. then we went inside the gift shop and looked around for a bit, and then we went to the info center and read up on different plants and animals that are common around the falls. jenny fell in love with a whistling (it whistled, right?) animal called a pika (http://wnpf.org/Upload/Images/pika2.jpg) and she was daydreaming about bringing one back to texas. haha. after an informative employee explained to us the habits of salmon, we left the falls to head to the house so we could figure out where we wanted to eat dinner and drop off jenny's things. once home we scanned through a weekly newsletter/ magazine on the best cheap food places around portland and we decided on pizza at Dove ViVi (http://www.dovevivipizza.com/)

I have a semi-ocd thing where i must touch the flowers to see if they're real.


Corn pizza with sausage added. it was DELICIOUS!!!

Originally we were going to choose some pepperoni type pizza, but then i said, NO, we have to try something NEW, something DIFFERENT. we can have pepperoni pizza any day. and so we decided on the corn pizza and it was a great choice! haha.
after dinner we headed to hawethorne, a must visit for my out of town friends. ;) we were going to see the descendants (blah) at 8:50 at the bagdad theater so we could get cajun tots checked off the visitors list, but we showed up to hawethorne around 6:30 or so, so we went walking down the street and our first stop was The Redlight Clothing Exchange (http://redlightclothingexchange.com/), which is also on the "visitors list" bc it's such a wild and cool place. jenny ended up buying some sandals from there- she loved them and i hope she is wearing them now that she won't get frostbite on her feet since she's back in texas. haha. after the redlight i wanted to take her to Presents of Mind (http://www.presentsofmind.tv/), but they closed at 7! in the winter they didn't close until 8. seems like when there are longer days you should stay open later, but i guess not. :P oh well. by this time we had been walking around in the rain (jenny in her toms [not prepared. haha] and me in my rain boots) and freezing our booties off in 10-15 mph wind, so we walked into starbucks and jenny got a drink. we still had about 40 minutes until we could purchase our tickets for the movie, so we hung out in starbucks for a bit. we decided to brave the cold again in order to get jenny some allergy medicine (jenny's allergic to cats) from fred meyer at the corner of the street. after that we still had 20 minutes until we could buy tickets, so we headed to the powell's on hawethorne and looked around through the young adult/kids section and reminisced about our childhood. haha. after maybe 20-30 minutes in powell's, we went to the bagdad theater, purchased our tickets and some cajun tots and sat down. the cajun tots were awesome, the movie was meh and the people watching the movies were annoying, as always (i could rant about this forever, but i'll leave it at that). after the movie we headed home and stayed up and watched some tv while throwing off jenny's sleep schedule. haha. jenny headed to bed and i stayed up a bit longer to wait for jarrod to get home. during this time i went upstairs to use the bathroom and looked out the bathroom window to see something white and powdery... SNOW, for real? yes.

tuesday: probably a month before jenny came to visit, i booked a hotel room in seattle for one night-tuesday night. i was a little worried bc of the snow that we may not be able to make it, so instead of leaving really early i said we'd sleep in and see how the roads were later. we ended up leaving the house around 12:40 or so, in sleet (that wasn't sticking) and just before hitting the washington state line, the sun came out from behind the clouds. for a while through washington we had sunshine and then rain and then....snow as we got closer to seattle. once in seattle, it was just overcast. we stepped into the hotel room and what comes falling out of the sky? snow. so we decide to sit by the heater for a while and make a game plan for what we will be able to get done that afternoon/evening (we got to the hotel around 3:50) and what to leave for wednesday. we decided on visiting the space needle, the fremont troll (http://www.fremont.com/fremonttroll.html) and having a seafood dinner somewhere. at this point, we hadn't had lunch, but jenny and i had been snacking, so we were fine, was jarrod fine? no. so we went in search of some fast food before heading towards the space needle. we didn't find anything, but we happened upon a cupcake shop: Yellow Leaf Cupcakes (http://www.theyellowleafcupcake.com/) and who can pass up cupcakes, right? we went inside to find they were running very low on cupcakes but noticed they had 3 whoopie cookies in the window, so we decided on those- perfect choice. those whoopie cookies were amazing and they held jarrod over until after the space needle. so by the time we arrived at the space needle, the sun had come out and the sky was almost completely clear of clouds! perfect timing!!! we went up to the observation deck and outside onto it until the wind whipped us in the face and we ended up inside the observation deck instead. we still managed to get a few pictures outside before running back in.

after the space needle, we headed to a mcdonalds across the street so jarrod could eat something to hold him over until dinner. then it was time for our awesome adventure of finding a parking space to see the Fremont Troll. eventually, we did find a space, really close up, and we got out to take pictures with the troll.


jarrod picking his nose. typical.

finally, it was time to head back to the hotel room for some warmth and rest. we hung out at the hotel room for awhile, watching tv and playing draw something against each other. (haha) and then we were all hungry, so it was time to find some seafood! jarrod used an app to find us some cheap seafood and we ended up going with a cajun place, sadly, i can't remember the name right now. :P i got a catfish po'boy, jarrod got a chicken po'boy and jenny got seafood gumbo. it was all very tasty and filling and cheap! haha. another great food choice. :) nothing else really happened until
wednesday: we were woken up earlier than wanted bc of construction near by, but that extra time let us leave seattle a little before i had said i wanted to be on the road by (4pm). we had breakfast at the hotel and then showered up and headed out. first stop: pike place market-the vendors were still setting up so we skimmed through and headed to the Gum Wall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gum_Wall)

then it was back to the market where we each bought different types of fruit (plums, pears, and apples), visited the original starbucks for jenny's sake, and spent way too much time in an amazing comic book store. we each bought a script from the store (LOST, dr. who, game of thrones- guess who bought which?) after looking through probably every nook and cranny of the market, we went to the waterfront to look through ye old curiosity shop and then eat. we decided on seafood, again, bc we were in SEATTLE, duh. we ate at the Crab Pot on the pier (http://www.thecrabpotseattle.com/)- amazing food, but expensive. :(


while visiting seattle for my birthday, jarrod and i ate here, and i had salmon tacos. they were spicy, so i decided on something different this time- salmon and chips. wise decision, my friends! :)

after a tasty lunch, we it was time to visit the emp/science fiction museum (http://www.empmuseum.org/). the experience music project featured a nirvana exhibit, which was pretty interesting. they still had the jimi hendrix exhibit as well, i think bc he was the inspiration for the experince music project. jarrod and i visited this museum on our road trip almost 4 years ago, and i swear there were a lot more exhibits then than now, but maybe we missed it? idk. after emp, we went to the science fiction museum side of the building which was featuring Avatar- awesome! hahah.

jenny standing in an avatar's shoes

me standing in the avatar shoes. haha


the special effects camera james cameron used- apparently they would film the actors doing their actions and then once they had gone home, he could incorporate the filming they did earlier in this camera which already has pandora and such things on it...hopefully that explains it...haha.

around 3:50, we were in the car and ready to head home- set to be home around 6:50, but of course we hit a ton of traffic (grrrrrrrr) and didn't make it home until 7:40. bah. by this time we were ready to do nothing, so i put a digornio pizza in the oven and brought down lots of chips and cookies for our dinner. it was a pretty low key night since getting home, just what we needed.
thursday: while grocery shopping this past sunday, jarrod came across this month's Portland Monthly (http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/issues/current-issue/) magazine featuring our favorite meal: breakfast and what was on the cover but cinnamon french toast! i was hoping this would be my replacement for the cheyenne at Old West Cafe, so jenny and i went to the restaurant that featured this dish: The Country Cat (http://thecountrycat.net/). once we got a menu i didn't see the cinnamon french toast and was having a mini attack until i looked over the menu and decided on something good when our waitress came up to us and told us about their special- cinnamon french toast. i was sold, of course. haha. so that's what i ended up getting.

my breakfast was good, but it wasn't my dearest cheyenne, so no luck on a replacement, yet. :P but maybe i'll find one! there's plenty of breakfast places around, along with food in general. haha.
after brunch, we went to the rose garden, just bc and we walked around for a bit and stopped in the shop where we were given rose tea. :)

after the shop it was time to head downtown for some voodoo donuts and of course, powell's city of books!!! that's where we spent the majority of our afternoon. we got home around 5 and watched some supernatural while waiting for jarrod to get home so we could go to dinner. for dinner we we decided to try this dinner that is pretty much right across the street- Ron's Restaurant, which jarrod was thinking would be like a denny's, and he was right-ish. regardless, it was still good food and i filled myself up on some chicken fried steak! yum. once we got to the car, (jarrod drove even though it would've made sense to walk...haha) it wouldn't start, so we made the 5 minute walk to the house to get my car and try to jump jarrod's car. that didn't work so we bought bigger jumper cables from the oreilly's next door to the restaurant (how lucky were we?!) which didn't work, so we decided we'd replace the battery today instead of last night as it was getting late (9 by the time we gave up). before dinner we were trying to decide what to do after dinner and i said we should get buy bridesmaids and watch that, and that's the plan we stuck to. we drove my car the 20 feet to fred meyer (it was raining) and bought some candy and bridesmaids then headed home and started the movie. good times. :) overall, not a terrible night, given the circumstances.
friday: i dropped jenny off at the airport at 11am and she is safely back in texas to enjoy the rest of her spring break in warmth and sunshine. haha.
i know i had a great time while she was here and i can't wait until she visits again (hopefully it'll be warmer) so we can have more amazing adventures!!! :D what a lovely week!!!
and now it's back to reality where i work 2 different jobs and don't know when my next day off will be.... but i still have a few things to look forward to, number one being THE HUNGER GAMES!!!!! i am hoping against hope that it unlocks wednesday night for our private screening, but even if it doesn't, we'll still get a private screening after midnight on thursday. i'd prefer wednesday, but either way i won't have to deal with the crazies (which i am a part of, but i will contain myself like a mature adult). however, i am not looking forward to how busy the theater will be for at least the next 2 weeks, if not longer (probably longer. come on, katniss!!! kick bella's whiney ass!!! hahah).
another thing to look forward to: more people coming to visit within the next few months, and of course, me flying back home!!! YEAH.
alright...that's all, except i'm sure you want to know what happened to jarrod's car: we bought a new battery and it started up no problem. phew.
until the next time: may the odds be ever in your favor. ;)
-sarah-

*idk what happened, but i was looking at the preview and tried to publish, but i hit enter and....idk. anyway, if this looks different than usual, that's why. sorry about that.

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