Something Funny

After seeing the Clackamas Repertory Theatre (CRT) production of "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" two years ago, we subsribed to the three-play season last year, when they performed "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)," "The Fantasticks," and "The Illustrated Man." All three shows were extremely well staged and performed. So it was a foregone conclusion we would subscribe again.

Last week, the season opened with a British farce called "See How They Run." Last night we saw it, and it was hilarious! Jayson Shanafelt, who we saw in "Shakespeare (unabridged)" last year did not disappoint as Clive. Newcomer Heather Ovalle was also a standout at Ida, the maid. Then again, all the roles were very well-played in this fast paced comedy.

Though the Osterman Theatre at Clackamas Community College is an intimate venue, we have been really impressed with the productions we've seen there, so we look forward to the next two plays and what the CRT has to offer in the future.

There are still six performances. If you like a great production of a really funny play, you should see "See How They Run." Maybe we'll see you there. Oh, and if Cynthia Smith-English, CRT Managing Mirector, asks, tell her we sent you.

Busy week...no pictures

I keep thinking I want to make sure to include pictures when I post, but if I wait till I get the gumption to process pictures, we could all be waiting a while, so here's a recap of the week sans pictures.

Birthday girl
That was me last Saturday, and it was a great party. In an unusual turn of events, everyone who said they would show up actually did and a person or two who hadn't said they would come showed up. It was a good mix of family, old Apple friends, cruise buddies, neighbors, business owners turned friends, and one high school chum. I will get to processing pictures...soon...I promise.

Tom's eastern North Carolina Barbeque-style was a hit. Most tried and liked the "traditional" sandwich by piling the coleslaw on top of the barbeque on the mini-buns made just for us by Market of Choice. The appetizers brought by friends, my Bill Neal shortcake with Oregon strawberries and, sweet tea (to complete the southern theme) and we all ate quite well.

What a great way to turn 50!

Move-in days
Monday we headed to IKEA to pick up a bed frame and dresser for my mom, then down to Wilsonville to wait for the guys from Take Care Move Assistance to arrive. Somehow we'd managed to fill the moving container in pretty short order, just the two of us, but we were very glad we hired Bill and his guy because to move the contents of the box from the loading area up three floors and down the hall 150 paces (Tom size...he counted) to my mom's new apartment. What took them 1 1/2 hours would surely have taken us the full day. And there was time left on the clock for them to build my mom's bed. Now you just cannot beat that.

We had decided that it was best to start her new apartment experience Tuesday morning so everyone was fresh. So we packed her clothes that we'd moved via Alaska Airlines baggage check and headed over, where even more clothes were waiting. Thanks to neighbor Laurie, we had enough hangers to accomodate without having to make a side trip to the Container Store. We made our first grocery store trip and inagurated the refrigerator. Tom built the dining table (chairs having been built on Monday) and the entertainment unit.

Wednesday the dresser was built, the new phone programmed, and the TV set up (except we couldn't find the remote), and my mom had spent her first night in Wilsonville. She seemed pretty spunky and on seeing her yesterday, she is settling in quite nicely. She's doing something she could never have done in Sun City West - walking Tootsie outside twice a day. We have lovely weather and her new pacemaker to thank for that, I think.

Miscellany
Lest you think I was slacking when we weren't hanging with my mom: I also managed four morning walks and a belated birthday lunch at Zeppo's in Lake Oswego; had printed 200 Columbia River Sewing Guild newsletters which I then (with a little help from my cool hubby) stapled, addressed, stamped and posted; located a long lost cousin to whom my mom wanted to send an address change; made and sent out the address change notices; and made and sent out thank you notes.

Baltic Blossoms
And I finally managed to get in some forward progress knitting on Saturday.

I started the border in early June when we were in AZ. I took out 6 rows of said border when we were in AZ. I thought was my first attempt at nupps but in researching a definition, I find that I must have knit them in Evelyn Clark's Swallowtail. At any rate, they were giving me fits (k1,YO,k1,YO,k1 into one stitch, purl 5 back). I didn't like the results so in my second (or maybe third) attempt I found that knitting into the front and back of the stitch for five stitches made it much easier to purl back. Still, after making unfixable mistakes, I ended up pulling out 16 rows of border (over 200 sts each) without winding the yarn as I went and then spending the ensuing day untangling the yarn. The next time(s?) I did it, I wound the yarn so resuming wasn't to difficult.

Saturday, with no distractions, and Sliding Doors (which I've seen many times) in the background, I whipped out 32 rows of the border without so much as a hitch. Go figure.

My projects for today are to get to the last set of border rows, and do laundry which I don't think I've been caught up on since March. Maybe this week.

Yarning around town

There's a lot going on in our world, including one more trip to Phoenix next Wednesday to get my Mom moved out of her house and up here to stay. She'll be moving into a nice senior community in Wilsonville, OR. She doesn't "believe it" but we think life will be easier without a house and yard and 100°F-plus to contend with.

Off the needles
In the meantime, I've been knitting away between trips and move planning. Before I headed to Chicago, I found a quick little crochet pattern so I wouldn't go to the Fiberly weekend empty-handed - a soap sack pattern on Simple Knits. I added an extra row of changes to make the edge more lacy and this is what I came up with. It was a quick and easy project, and in the course of a week or so I whipped up about a dozen out of Sugar and Cream cotton yarn.
 

I started the Indigo Ripples skirt from Interweave Knits Summer 2007 before going to Phoenix, but didn't get much knitting done while I was there. When I got home, I set to work. The yarn is Elann Den-M-Nit Pure Indigo Cotton. The indigo dye seemed to be a little drying to my skin, or it may have simply been having to wash my hands after each knit session. It was a good pattern to knit; it knit up fast and like those who went before me, I do like the result.


On the needles
Evelyn Clark brought several knitted samples to class. One really grabbed me - Baltic Blossoms. So I took a picture to remind me and after I got home, I ordered it.


The Habu Bamboo lace yarn I got from Knit-Purl in Portland had been calling me to knit it up, so I cast on Baltic Blossoms. It's a 20/3 yarn, so very fine and my resulting shawl won't be large, but I think it will be pretty an oh-so-soft.


Portland Area yarn stores
Early this month I got news that Tangle in Lake Oswego will be closing in June. The same week, I also saw a note about a new shop opening in Vancouver, WA, Stitchcraft. It's an interesting market here. I've updated the Yarn Shops lists to reflect the changes.

In the meantime, a couple of days ago, my new neighbor, Laurie (who knits!!!) and I headed on a little shop-hop, since she is new to the area. We started at Mill End Store (she also sews - some). Then to Abundant Yarns, where we each picked up some Abundant Yarn naturally dyed yarn. I got 50/50 wool/silk in Bandon Dunes.


I also found Noro Designer Mini Knits by Jenny Watson that I couldn't resist bring home.


Next Laurie got to experience Yarn Garden. It's a great shop, but neither of us found anything that screamed it had to take it home, so we headed for our next destination - Yarnia. There were lots of yarns in wool, rayon, bamboo, silk, cotton and more and the concept of creating a unique blend of yarn was intriguing, but it's a new one to us, so we left with ideas and will probably return with projects in mind.

We headed across the Columbia into Vancouver to check out Stitchcraft. It's a nice little shop that has some quilt fabric and a very nice yarn selection. We both fell in love with the Purity shawl from Rowan Magazine 43 and decided we had to knit it.


I loved the orange, but I'm just not an orangy girl. The Rowan Kid Silk Haze was just so soft, I actually bought the pattern yarn, but picked out a more red version, which it turns out is not too far from the color of the Habu bamboo. Well at least I'm consistent. So far it's an easy knit in stockinette on size 9 needles.


I also found yet another book: Heartfelt by Kim Hargreaves.

   

Our last stop was Knit-Purl and Josephine's Dry Goods, where admired the yarn and fabric, but didn't make any purchases.

One more thing
Not yarn related, but worth mentioning is the restaurant we found - Kappaya. I ordered the Tempura bento, which I thought was a little spendy at $7.50, but I was wrong since it came not only with rice, salad, miso, but included two dumplings, pickled vegs, and more than a dozen pieces of tempura - more than half of which went home with me.

While I'm on the subject of Japanese food, I'll give honorable mention to our favorite (though not nearest) Japanese restaurant - Fuji Sushi in Clackamas. Good reasonably priced sushi. My favorite thing is the Sunnyside roll, with tempura shrimp, cucumber, cream cheese and avocado - topped with Fuji sauce. We haven't figured out exactly what's in the sauce, but it is good.

It was a good day out.

Denver

I was looking for a particular class taught by Galina Khemeleva and happened on the Mile High Lace Knitting Conference in Denver. I'm all about lace AND I graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Denver (more than a few years ago) so clearly I was destined to go. It turned out to be a very small conference held at the Renaissance Hotel across from what was, in "my day", Stapleton International Airport. I won't bore you with how much had changed in places, but it was significant.

Truth be told the knitting was an excuse to look up and see old friends. The visits started on Tuesday when it got to over 80 degrees farenheit and was still 76 degrees as I headed home (the significance of this comes up next) from dinner with Stephanie Brearton. I met Stephanie when we both pledged Alpha Phi at Colorado State. The chapter didn't last, but our friendship did.



I arrived on Monday, but the conference didn't start till Wednesday evening, so I stayed the first two nights at what we've come to call Hotel Shelton, aka Robert and Edith's house. They are the parents of my good friend Mark and I always enjoy spending time there. I don't like to visit someone's house empty handed, but have a hard time thinking what to make men, so I packed a full biscuit "kit", consisting of Oregon ingredients: Bob's Red Mill flour, baking soda, and baking powder, Tillamook butter, and Market of Choice buttermilk (and salt) to make Robert. For Edith, I made Elisa's Nest Tote in Bernat Kitchen Cotton. I knit in the round (taking a cue from a Ravelry-er), left the stitches live and knit on the i-cord for the handles, and it was done in just a few days.


Before I left for my stay at the hotel, I took Robert and Edith to lunch.


The snow flurries began as we left the restaurant, and by evening there was a nice blanket of snow. Gotta love that Denver weather! One June day circa 1979, the week before summer solstice, I was scraping snow off my car onto my cold sandaled feet.

Thursday morning, I enjoyed the snow in the early morning as I drove to meet Linda Williams for coffee.
 

Linda Williams was the senior class president and was consistently one of the nicest people at TJ even to those of us who were bussed in. Our friendship has remained intact and I'm expecting her to visit sometime this year so she can meet her goal of visiting all 50 states by the end of her 50th year. She has Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska to go.



Friday I took advantage of the two hour lunch break and had lunch with Mark Forsyth, my date to the senior prom. Considering we haven't been in touch since we graduated, it was a remarkably fun lunch. Mark is a retired cop, teaching at Regis College in Denver. I asked Mark to the prom and he probably warned me that he couldn't dance, but I chose to ignore the fact, but he was telling the truth. At 17, that was pretty "tragic", but years later it's laughable. We shared only one class (that I know of) - photography, and all I have is the impression of how nice he was. Next month his daughter will marry and he's been told he must dance with her. And he will. He asked me to "dump" the photo I took, so in deference, here's a prom picture.


That evening, the plan was to meet also have dinner with Dan and Dori Hugo and their twin 18-month-old boys, but while the latter were calm and quiet in the morning, when the plan was set, by evening it was decided that Dan would have to meet me solo. Despite the disappointment, Dan and I had a great dinner and evening catching up. It was such a good evening, the camera never came out of my bag. I'm promised a family photo some day.

Saturday evening my good friend Randy Roorda picked me up and we headed for dinner at one of his favorite Mexican Restaurants in Aurora. We met senior year in Mr Miles Sociology class when alphabetically he sat in the desk in front of me. And the rest is friendship history. He's a teacher, who has been off the past year. He says if he doesn't find the right position in Denver he'd like to move to Oregon. We can only hope.

Trying to catch up

There's that general premise that as you get older time seems to go by more quickly. Add to that 9 planes in 21 days, of which onl 6 were spent at home and the month of April was just a blink in the proverbial eye. That, along, with a last minute visit from my mom that proceeded the three weeks of travel, in part explains my absence from blogland. I started writing this thinking I'd do one big post, but as I looked at all the unprocessed pictures, I realize my catching up will have to occur over several posts. So here I start in the middle.

I promised some pictures when last I posted:

Dianne's skirt and jacket
These were finished well before they were gifted to Dianne but, of course, couldn't be posted till she had them in her hands. It started with the Sandra Betzina skirt pattern, Vogue 2933. Tom found the fabric, at the Mill End Store in Milwaukie and I decided that I need to make something to go with it so we picked a cool eyelet.

The skirt was completed, with the "help" of some Pattern Review-ers to sort out the "wings." The fabric feels like rayon, but is a poly microfiber (the clerk at Mill End was sure the bolt description was wrong so did a burn test).



The jacket was Vogue 8398. I took my sewing machine and serger up to Puyallup with me and set up a little sewing station at the hotel. I underlined the eyelet with silk organza to give it some body and got most of it completed during the trip, just wanting to use my "good" machine to do the topstitching of the bias tape facing.



Another shirt for Tom
Tom got three new shirts in March - two to take to San Jose and one for his birthday - not that I need an excuse. I managed to post the first SJ shirt, but finished the second on the morning of the trip and forgot all about it.



The birthday shirt and the birthday boy with his second biggest fan.




Alpine Lace Scarf
It's done. All the time my mom was in town, she said she didn't think I'd ever finish it. And there were times I didn't disagree with her. Like immediatly after I made the decision to unknit back 14 inches to correct the mistake in the border that probably only I would see, but I'd know it was there. But I did finish it.

Doggie Dash 2008

Last year Tom and I walked the Doggie Dash and raised enough donations for the Oregon Humane Society to put us in the top three teams (excluding the board of directors). We're walking again this year (with Jake and Mandy) and, though I have no expectations of repeating the team placement, I do want to at least match the dollar amount we raised and once again I'm asking for your help. All donations count! Here's the skinny:

On Saturday, May 10 thousands of animal lovers, many with their favorite canines will run and walk two miles at the Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland, Oregon. 100% of the fees and donations go to the Oregon Humane Society toward reaching their goal of finding homes for 10,000 pets in 2008.

The Oregon Humane Society has been helping homeless animals since 1868. Last year OHS found homes for 9118, which includes animals transferred to OHS from other shelters in Oregon, Washington, and California. Additionally, OHS transfers animals who they don't think they can adopt out to other adoptions organizations to give them another chance. (That's how Jake found us.) The adoption rate at OHS is 3-4 times higher than the national average.

There's more on their website.

Please support the Oregon Humane Society with your donation by clicking here.

Thanks,

Another Yarn Shop - with a twist

A PDX Knit Blogger posted information about Yarnia, so I can take no credit, other than spreading the word.


I won't be able to go to the grand opening on February 2, but, even though I need more yarn like I need a hole in the head, it's such an interesting concept, I'll have to visit the SE Portland store soon.

I will say that I have successfully used up all but 1/3 ball of some of the oldest yarn in my stash. The Elderflower skirt is knit. It just needs buttons and I'll post pictures.

A different perspective on LYS

I have to admit that I have not frequented the LYS as much as I would like (or they would like, for that matter). It has much to do with convenience, as much as selections. As with everything, fibers, yarns and colors, and the shops that sell them are a matter of personal taste. How products are merchandised and the people in the shop also affect my decision to frequent any business.

Two shops near me have closed in the past year, while the oldest still survives, in part, I'm guessing because of location. The idea of the neighborhood yarn shop is appealing in theory, but for me, it also has to stock the kinds of products I need or want. At this point in my stash, it's all about finding that something different—in color or fiber, and that's something that many neighborhood shops may not be able to offer because of the cost of maintaining both a storefront and inventory.

So I shop the internet shops as well. Now this doesn't have to mean I don't shop locally. I do. Several LYS offer internet shopping for yarn and accessories. They are taking advantage of what the expanded customer the internet has to offer. It is also a convenience for me since they are not just down my block.

And then there are the internet-only stores that are local. Most recently (okay, yesterday), I ended up at Woolgirl where I found an extensive selection of hand painted yarns in a variety of fibers. Since I'm really trying to minimize stash enhancements, I picked a bunch of yarns with intriguing colors and fibers and narrowed the purchase to a suri alpaca/silk laceweight yarn in a color called "berrijus." I got an email that my shipping cost was reduced because Jennifer was located just across the Willamette River from me in Oregon City. I was caressing this lovely yarn yesterday. I don't know if you can beat this combination for softness.

Local Yarn

Shortly after moving here, I marveled at the number of yarn shops in the area—fifteen when we arrived and eighteen by the end of 2005. Were there that many knitters? Could that many shops really survive?

The internet is both a blessing and a curse. As a consumer, I shop around to find variety and the value. But for small businesses, it can be hard. The overhead of a storefront. That point has been made quite clear Mabel's Knittery and Café closes the yarn shop this month. They will follow Cozy Ewe in June and Lint last month and sometime in the past year, Knit-In Café. I'm sure the neighborhoods will be a little lost without them, but it can be said that there are still local options, some are storefronts, some are internet, some are both.

Regarding Mabel's the following was posted to the SNB-Portland list:

Starting this Sunday - August 12th - we will be having a storewide
liquidation. All inventory will be 30% off, and we expect things to
move quickly. We will open from 10AM - 6PM for the first two days,
and will close at 4PM for the remaining 4 or 5 days.

But she also said:

On a happier note, I will be starting a new business in the same
location, and many familiar faces will be right there with me. I
hope you will all stop by at the end of August to check out our new
and expanded coffee house, complete with a children's area, free wi-
fi, delicious coffee, bagels, treats, milkshakes....all the good
stuff. We hope to carry all of the coziness of Mabel's along with
us.

It's always good to end on a happier note.

More things to like about where we live

Nothing against the other places I've lived (and being an Air Force brat, I've lived in a few), but I have never really enjoyed where I was living till now. Now part of that may be attributed to the fact that I have the good fortune to not have to go to work everyday, so I have time to enjoy my surroundings. Nonetheless, almost everyday, I see or hear something new or different that makes the decision to move here all the better. Mind you they aren't always big...

There are the parks.
Last week, we went to Foothills Park, a Lake Oswego city park. It's not big, but the footpath goes along the Willamette so there's lots to see. Along the way we saw a couple of egrets on the rocks.


We also saw a building that has piqued our curiosity along. We saw it from the back on a walk in George Rogers Park. Was it a city building or a home? It's one of two concrete buildings in the park. I've often seen the other riding along Highway 43. I can't even think what to search on in Google...


Mary S Young Park gets a mention because it is but a mile from the house and walking there you can practically forget were smack dab in the middle of a developed town.

...and the dogs in the park
Mandy is enjoying getting out, and is getting used to the cool smells in the dog park at Mary S Young.
 

Berries
I had my first boysenberry on Wednesday from South Barlow Produce we found at the West Linn Farmers Market. We also got some huge blueberries and raspberries. To give you some perspective the blueberry was about the size of a dime.

Theatre
Last year the Clackamas Repertory Theatre put on a production of "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change!" We'd seen the off Broadway production and saw it again in San Jose, and this was the best of the three. On Sunday, we saw "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)" and it was great. There are still two performances left...

"Singin' in the Rain" caught our eye in the West Linn Tidings. Put on by the Broadway Rose Theatre Company, it was an enjoyable performance, highlighted by Daniel Lee Robbins as Cosmo. The Oregonian's review really sums up the performance.

The second performance in the Broadway Rose season is "Cole" which we saw last night. Once again we were not disappointed. Great music, great singing and a little tap number by Meredith Weber. It runs through next Sunday.

Yarn
The Portland area is a veritable mecca of knitters and yarn shops. Alas! yesterday began the closing sale at Lint so soon, we will be one store less.

Finished Objects

Where did the week go? Has it really been over a week since I last posted? Well, at least I have some things to show for the absence.

Knitters and Bloggers
There is such a sense of community in Oregon that I have never felt in other places I've lived. It starts with the pride in the state that residents hold and extends to the desire to get together and share common interests. Combine that with the extraordinary knitting community and you have PDX Knit Bloggers, a group of knitters who met each other at Powell's when Stephanie Pearl-McPhee was in town and decided they needed to find other knit bloggers in the area. A Yahoo! group was started and on Sunday twenty-four knitters met at Knit-Purl to share stories, projects and, of course, knit. Kathy was among the first to blog about it. Monica became the official photographer having taken the most pictures, including me working on Sasha. Peggy and Mims from the Oregonian have described what everyone was working on.

Speaking of Sasha
The third time was a charm with this skirt. I bought the pattern last year in May. I started it, then frogged with almost all the underskirt done. I started it a second time but abandoned it for reasons I don't recall after just a couple of inches. A third start yielded he first section of the underskirt and, true to form, I got distracted with shinier, newer project. This past May, I thought it would be a good airplane project, but at the last minute decided it would be too cumbersome for travel. But now it is done. Yay!

Mystery Stole Clue 2
I finally figured out what I need to do to keep on track or rather, on chart. It's rather simple really—draw a dark line every 5 rows (forehead slap!). I've never been good about using row counters, or actually marking my place. That involves stopping and I'm just not that disciplined. At any rate, here's my progress on the shawl. BTW, at the PDX Knit Bloggers gathering, there were at least four others working on the stole (but only one who could concentrate and work on it at the meeting).


Convertible Wrap
Crocheting the hairpin lace panels on the loom went by swimmingly quickly. Crocheting up the loops—not-so-much. But it is done, the buttons on and April's birthday present is ready for mailing across the pond to Scotland. It will go with a picture from the stitchdiva site along with my pictures.
 





Ugly Pants
I finally got the ribbing onto the "muslin" pants. This will be the only public sighting of me in the pants. They will not leave the house unless they go out in a Goodwill bag.






Birthdays
We don't tend to celebrate birthdays exactly on the date with friends because there's always just too much going on. This year, we enjoyed John's birthday along with the nation's. Tom thought it would be a good idea for me to make another bottle poodle but he came up with the idea the third, so that was out. Instead, he did a little crafting of his own and the two liter bottle of single malt became a bottle bunny.

My gift from Dianne and John was interesting, pretty and tasty. Flowering Tea.

before

after

Spreading the wealth

Tom said yesterday that one of the things he loves about me is that I spread the wealth around. That was as we were leaving Mill End, having visited new yarn shop Twisted, and were heading to Lowe's.

A little yarn
Twisted just opened on Friday in northeast Portland. I've actually been very good about yarn, having not "invested" since pre-Scotland. It's my duty,however, to visit all yarn shops in the area at least once (I haven't been to Hillsboro or Gresham, though). Since we were out and about, I thought I needed to check out the new store. It's a nice little shop with probably the best display of Noro of any store I can recall. They have a good selection of unusual fibers (including soysilk, corn and banana fibers) as well has interesting handpainted yarns. Their stock of what I call "basic" yarn (solid color wools and cottons in all weights) is extensive. In the end I found a Merino/Tencel blend and chose a color that is new to my stash.

A little fabric
I've cut out and sewn up the ugly fabric and I'm quite pleased with the fit of the pants, having adjusted the pattern using my trouser moulage. As soon as I add the ribbing, I'll post a picture. It was the ribbing that prompted the stop at the Mill End store in Milwaukie. We always look at dog fabrics (their selection was meager, at best), but Tom did spy some Scooby Doo fabric that he liked.


And finally, the Home Improvement store
The strips for the convertible wrap are done, but I was having a bugger of a time matching up the loops to crochet together (my yarn is floppier than the demonstration on Knitty Gritty) so we bought a couple of dowels to thread through so I can see each successive loop. Now aren't dowels an exciting purchase?

Yum!

Just back from my official birthday dinner at a new restaurant in the Willamette Falls neighborhood here in West Linn. L & B's Restaurant & Gallery opened in October and we found out about it in one of the coupon flyers we got in the mail. The ad showed a more upscale restaurant than any other in the city, so we decided to try it out. Good choice.

We were greeted by Jennifer, who also turned out to be our excellent server. The menu is fairly extensive. We were tempted by the tomato roasted red pepper soup, intrigued by the roasted radish soup du jour, but opted for crispy calamari - very light and tender served with a spicy marinara sauce.

The entrée choices were variations on typical "American" restaurants with a chicken, several fish, steak and port options. Tom chose the cioppino, which, though a little salty, he enjoyed. But I think I had the best with the special tilapia - not normally a fish choice I'd make. It was served lightly pan fried, topped with a caper relish served over risotto with a lemon beurre blanc sauce. Yum!

We tried their crème brulée and strawberry rhubarb crisp. I love custard. This brulée, was a little creamy for my taste, but good. I will forever miss Harrison's version of the dessert, which I enjoyed, for the last time, a year ago, and they closed unexpectedly two weeks later...but I digress... Tom liked the crisp, but liked my brulée better.

We will go back.

No website and not much online coverage yet, but they are located at 1717 Willamette Falls Drive, West Linn (503) 722-9561.

Dragon Boat Races

It's been almost two weeks, but I've finally processed the pictures we took at the Dragon Boat Races during the Portland Rose Festival. Our original plan was to cheer Dianne and John on as the Realty Trust Red Dragons participated in their second year, but we missed the first day because we were sure they wouldn't run the races at the same time as the parade. Wrong!

But we did make it to see them in their quarter-final and semi-final heats, along with Jean. It was a lot of fun!
 

More pictures are here.

It bears mentioning that between the races we had lunch at the European Divine Café—because pea soup I had was delicious (and not just because I was hungry), while Tom and Jean both seem to enjoy their gyros. The service was very slow, but it appeared to be a "mom and pop" shop with only three people working there. Perhaps they weren't quite prepared for the Dragon Boat race crowd.