California v. Portlandia

I am happy to say that summer is finally in full gear here in Portland. To be sure, it's not the 115 degree "I could bake cookies in my car" summer that greeted me in Redding a couple weeks ago when I went home for my mom's birthday, but Portland's version of the season has definitely arrived. Not like people here were waiting for consistent sunshine to start crossing things off their summer to-do lists. Before I left for California, right around the time my mother posted the little gem below on my Facebook wall, I actually saw someone barbecuing outside

But really.

of their house in full rain gear...right after I had watched one far-too-considerate driver lean out of his car and angrily yell and flip off another for not stopping to let me jaywalk across a busy intersection by my house. Really, this city sometimes.
     Since my trip down to California, I've actually been considering moving back to the Golden State. Not because I refuse to barbecue in the rain (although I do), or because I would rather wait a few extra minutes to cross the street than have someone get the finger on my behalf (but really, over-courteous Portland driver, I would), but because there's just something about Northern California that feels like home.  It has everything I love about Portland -- the good food, the farmers' markets, the big trees -- just with nicer weather and more family.  While I was home, I celebrated my mom's 30th birthday (you're welcome, reading mother) by going to see Monsters University, followed by a nice dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Sacramento River.  I was so happy to be home I even went to Zumba with her and danced around waving a towel above my head to Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" in a room full of moms.  While I was home, I was also able to drive down and see James in the Bay Area, and it was sometime driving around out there in the rolling foothills and cow pastures that populate Northern California that I started thinking about calling those foothills Home.  Also, this happened:

Dinner!

Taken post-scream, after I discovered that fish do not die as soon as they are caught, and if you hold them up for a photo-op, they will make a scene.

James took me fishing and helped me catch my first fish - yay!  He was nice enough to give me complete credit, even though all I did was point to a rod we had set up on the shore and say, "Hey, that thing is moving. What does that mean?" and, when and how he told me to, I reeled in the fish I would name James, in my fishing guru's honor.  Not thinking that, a few hours later, Fish James would be brutally beheaded and gutted by Person James in front of my eyes.
    After over a week of backyard camp-outs, kayaking, home-cooked meals, and what might as well be called an all-I-can-eat fruit buffet in my parents' kitchen, it's needless to say that I had a hard time coming back to Portland.  But come back I did, and so far, the city has done a pretty decent job of reminding me how awesome it can be (ask me again come winter).  Things like last weekend's trip to Sauvie Island, a lovely little retreat twenty or so minutes outside of the city and home to several U-Pick farms, have helped to shake off the post-California blues.  My housemate and I came back with blueberries, strawberries, and the perfect amount of blackberries for a blackberry pie.

Makin' the crust.

It's not the best pie, but it's pie nonetheless.  And it's my first pie, so there's that. And, it's significantly better than I remember it being it last night, so either my expectations were lower and probably more realistic today than they were last night, or the flavors have just had some time to mingle and flirt. I'll go with the latter.

  


Besides pie and berries, my life has consisted of Friends re-runs, fact-checking, and hanging out with two little girls I've been babysitting for almost three years now, and who continue to brighten my days by taking everything way too literally, like the Hershey's commercial they saw a couple days ago: "Life is delicious?  What does that mean?  Does that mean you, like, eat your life?" The other day I fumbled a pint of raspberries into the gutter, only to find a random blueberry bush growing next to the sidewalk a few feet away.  So, even if California may beat out Portland for me in the long run, life in Portland is still pretty darn delicious.  But I'd never tell that to a six-year-old.  I wouldn't want to confuse them.