Snowpocalypse 2014

So, it snowed. For the past three days, Portlanders have been cross-country skiing in the streets, snowshoeing to coffeehouses, snowboarding behind bicycles, and generally having a blast in the winter wonderland that the city has transformed into.  For some, the snow has provided the perfect opportunity to bring out excessively large fur hats and jackets. Others have donned full-on snow gear, ski goggles included.  Roads that are normally busy, now resemble quaint, quiet small-town streets, and many businesses are shut down completely or have been closing early.  I've heard rumors that the city only has one snowplow. Turns out that’s not exactly the case — the number is closer to 55 — but still, only about 10% of streets are cleared with those plows.  Portland just isn’t a place prepared to deal with a solid three day dumping of snow. Now I’m starting to feel like Snowpocalypse 2014 has overstayed its welcome. Freezing rain killed the mood, as did having to crawl up the slope in front of my house on my hands and knees to avoid the frozen-over steps leading up to our front door. The city has issued an emergency alert encouraging everyone to stay indoors, and the light rail systems and streetcars are shut down. Not that I should really be complaining. I haven’t had to drive anywhere since Wednesday night and got called off from work today. I really made it out just fine, minus a gash on my head that resulted from making an amateur mistake during a snowball fight and running full force into a wooden bridge, part of a play structure in a public park.  But hey, here's to a day of watching my neighbors skid around on the ice (sometimes with their dogs) and sweep snow off their cars because a broom is the handiest snow-removal tool some of us have.  I'll be inside with my space-heater on and this video playing on repeat, waiting for lentil soup to finish cooking in my crock-pot.

Division St.

Casual.

 

When snow was fun

When snow was not so fun and I ended up with a band-aid on my head

Halloween, and so forth.

I have no idea how it came to be November already, but somehow, that happened.  In a couple of weeks my parents will be heading this way to have Thanksgiving at my house since I'm tied up here with work and can't make it home for the holiday for the first time ever. So, my mom has volunteered to drive up and cook dinner while I'm working -- a plan that suits everyone because a) I work until 6, so if the parents weren't here and I ended up crashing a potluck at a friend's house there is a chance (however small) that all turkey and sweet potato casserole would be long gone and b) my parents won't have to conquer an entire turkey by themselves.

I wasn't lying.

Speaking of holidays, Halloween was a great success. James was in town, which made it extra special, and meant that king-sized candy bars were up for grabs for trick-or-treaters -- toddlers excluded -- who knew some things about U.S. History, like the name of the second president of the United States. Make 'em work for it - why not? Once we had wounded enough children's egos for an evening, we dressed up as angry Germans - James has a pair of lederhosen and I borrowed my roommate's dirndl - and wandered around to a few bars in the neighborhood.  A highlight was waving across a dimly lit 1984-themed bar to none other but ALF in all his glory and having him raise a paw to me in return.
   Even New Seasons, my favorite grocery store, was decked out for Halloween. When I went in to pick up last minute supplies for pumpkin pancakes, the freezer section had been turned into this (see below). Made my morning.              

Spooky frozen foods.

A few days before, we had gone out to Sauvie Island to pick pumpkins and run around in the corn maze. With the
help of our "Scriptural Passport" we made it out alive. Good thing we knew that baby Jesus was born a) in a manger, instead of b) in a hotel in Jerusalem. Otherwise, who knows what would have happened.

The "MAiZE"

While James was here we of course went to 80's Video Dance Attack at the Crystal Ballroom. It was a Friday-night tradition that died when my dancing partner moved to California, and I was happy to bring it back to life.  The great thing about 80's Night is that everyone is really just there to dance to Talking Heads and Madonna and see the music video for "Thriller" play on a big projector screen.  There's a good mix of people who actually grew up in the 80's and people like James and myself -- twenty-somethings who just want to dance to "Tainted Love." But really, who doesn't? Even if you think you don't, you do. And even if you think you can't dance, you can. At 80's night, you definitely can. This is a place where you could do the Sprinkler dance and get away with it, because at 80's night, in the words of Deee-lite, groove is in the heart.
     And what would 80's night be without some Delicious Donuts to top it off? Anyone who tells you that Voodoo Donuts makes the best donuts in Portland is lying.  First off, the people who own Delicious Donuts  are the sweetest people ever. Boun and Penny (the owners) have two boys named Aiden and Jaeden because Penny's sister is named Jenny and Penny wanted her kids' names to rhyme too. True story.  Anyways, they stay up all night making donuts and sometimes -- I speak from experience -- they'll let you in before they officially open and sell you donuts hot out of the fryer.  It doesn't look like much from the outside but the donuts live up to the shop's name, and you won't have to wait in line for two hours for one..who am I kidding...six silly donuts. You won't regret it.
     In other news, I met my first hermaphrodite dog. His name was Lumpy, and we became acquainted when he came into the flower shop the other day.  Apparently he went in for some kind of surgery and the doctor found a uterus inside of him. Who knew? Lucky for him, he lives in Portland. Happy Friday, everyone.

Gord's Gold

"All Things Pumpkin; Pumpkin in All Things" 

I love Fall. Specifically, I love October. I love when pumpkins start piling up outside of grocery stores and when pumpkin pie ice cream shows up (on sale!) inside of those grocery stores. I love when my neighborhood Peet's Coffee and Starbucks, located literally right across the street from each other, put out competing signs for pumpkin spice lattes.  I love when Trader Joe's sends out its October newsletter ever so appropriately titled "All Things Pumpkin; Pumpkin in All Things; Other Stuff, Too" so I can read it in bed while watching "Orange is the New Black" and drool over things I don't need but have to have, like pumpkin cream cheese and pumpkin butter. 

Aaaand, it's VooDoo Donuts themed this year. How Portland.

"Other Stuff, Too."(Not all of which has to do with Fall)

Go and Do: The Haunted MAiZE (at The Pumpkin Patch on Sauvie Island): Okay, so it's not so much a haunted maze as it is a haunted walk or guided path, but neither of those descriptions allow for clever word play.  Either way, you will be chased in cornfields by strangers with chainsaws. Who wouldn't want that?

Watch: Halloween. The 1978 version. Michael Myers (no, not from Austin Powers) vs. a twenty-something Jamie Lee Curtis.  With bad acting, a catchy theme song, and a masked man who just will not die no matter how many times you stab him with a knitting needle, clothes hanger, or even his own knife, Halloween is so much more than just another teen slasher flick.

This happens. See for yourself.

Read: Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence. Because where else are you going to get a description like this of an excessively overweight woman?

 "The immense accretion of flesh which had descended on her in middle life like a flood of lava on a doomed city had changed her from a plump active little woman with a neatly-turned foot and ankle into something as vast and august as a natural phenomenon."

Listen: As if Bon Iver's "Skinny Love" wasn't enough, a seventeen-year-old Brit named Birdy released an acoustic version of the song, a feat I never would have thought possible. Our work Pandora station has picked this up as a favorite -- God knows why -- and every time, I'm like...

Eat and Drink: A list is required.

• Spiced Apple Cider (and, while you're at it, apple cider donut muffins!!)
• Pumpkin Pancakes from scratch, courtesy of Joy the Baker.
• Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
• These adorable pie crust leaves as seen on Cupcakes and Cashmere.
• And, of course, Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale. Which, I might add, goes quite nicely with homemade cinnamon sugar popcorn.

Happy October!

 

Recipe: Braised Figs with Arugula

I work evenings at the flower shop, which means that I've been eating dinner a lot later than I'm used to -- like around 9 or 9:30, sometimes even as late as 10.  I'm usually starving by the time I get home, but I never feel like making an extravagant dinner, nor do I feel like filling myself up with something super heavy a couple hours before going to bed.  That said, this braised figs with arugula recipe from The Vegan Table has definitely come in handy.  My friend turned me onto this recipe a few weeks ago when we made it together for the first time, and I just made it again for dinner on Wednesday. Figs are definitely on their way out, so this recipe is a great way to get your fill of the fruit before the season is over.

Ingredients

I splurged and bought these figs at Zupans. They were 7 dollars, and at least 3 of those dollars probably went towards this silly little crate they came in.  Whatever, Zupans. You win.

1 tablespoon butter (or Earth Balance or Coconut Oil)
I teaspoon sugar
1 pint figs
4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 bunch arugula
1 tablespoon olive oil
lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Make it Happen

-Melt butter in a large sauté pan and mix in sugar.
-Place figs face down in the pan and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, until the face of the fig is sticky and golden around the edges. (I have a bad habit of walking away from the stove while I'm cooking and coming back to an over-boiling, foaming pot of oatmeal or, in this case, slightly over-cooked figs.  Follow the recipe and not my example, and you'll be just fine.)
-Remove from heat and place figs on a plate.
-In the same skillet, heat the balsamic vinegar until it is bubbly, then reduce to a simmer for 4-5 minutes.
-In a bowl, toss the arugula with olive oil and lemon juice, and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.
-Place arugula on a plate and arrange figs on top. Drizzle with the balsamic reduction, and voilà! Ready to serve!

I'm not vegan, so I like to throw some goat cheese on at the end to give it a little something extra. Enjoy!

Newness and Stuff

Just when I thought I was going to have to change my name to Chrysanthemum Rose if I wanted to work at any of the places I was applying to ("Hello, this is Violet from the Meadow"..."Hi, this is Sage from Sammy's Flowers," and don't even get me started on "Karen Fern") I finally got a job.  Actually, I got two.  And one of them has allowed me to cross something off my bucket list.  In a blog post a couple months ago, I made a list of possible career paths, and working in a flower shop was on there, right after interviewing Hannibal Lecter.  My case is one in which persistence paid off. Granted, it was borderline creepy persistence -- I actually just found a cover letter I had written Sammy's Flowers over a year ago.  But my almost-stalking and intense enthusiasm did the trick: I started working at the shop last week.  It's a whole lot of everything -- bouquet making, sweeping, answering phones, taking orders, tagging flowers -- with almost no down time, and it's the best.  The woman training me was telling me how lucky she was to get a job at the shop since she hadn't worked with flowers since college, and all I could say was how lucky I was to get a job at the shop without any experience, period.
   My other job is at a dress boutique just a few blocks down from Sammy's, so I'll be spending quite a bit of time on Northwest 23rd.  All the dresses in the shop are designed by one woman and are handmade locally using Fair Trade silk from India. The fabrics are beautiful and the quality is high, but the dresses certainly aren't cheap, so they appeal to a very specific clientele from what I've seen - mainly brides-to-be and older women looking for special occasion dresses.  One of the perks of working there is that I get to wear the clothes without any cost to myself, but the owner was out of town when I started working (about 2 weeks ago now) so I have been wearing my own skirts and dresses, but I still try to look nice and put together.  "Try to" are the key words there.  The first day I worked I spilled this pungent oily salad dressing down my skirt while I was eating lunch in a dressing room.  It got on the dressing room floor, and then I had to rinse my skirt off in the sink and dry it with the automatic hand dryer that I still haven't gotten used to.  This dryer is situated uncomfortably close to the sink to the point where it will sense your shoulder or elbow while you are washing your hands.  The stupid thing will blast on unexpectedly and scare you like you never thought an appliance could. Trust me, I've been there. 

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.

  

"Oh, The Places You'll Go!"

     Last Thursday, the editorial staff of Portland Monthly took me and my fellow interns out to what turned into a four-hour-long happy hour -- the happiest of happy hours -- at a classy French "Brasserie" downtown.  There were plenty of fancy cocktails and deep-fried frog legs to be had, and all I ended up paying for was a $5 bowl of gourmet mac-and-cheese.  That may not be all I should have paid for, if that slip of paper handed to me at the end of the night was actually a receipt telling me how much I needed to pay for my beer, instead of what I (wishfully) thought it was: a receipt telling me how much  my supervisor had paid for my beer.  I learned that I should really go for speed instead of duration if I want to get the most out of Portland Monthly happy hours and don't end up buying -- or not buying -- myself my 2nd drink while everyone else has already had four covered.  But happy hour also reminded me that a) being a fact-checker is totally worth (my parents may disagree) the two parking tickets, consequent trip to court, and several-hundred-dollar cell phone charge I ran up during the first month of my internship, when I was too self-conscious to make phone calls from my desk, in front of other people, like a normal human being, and also that b) I still belong in the intern world.  I think the fact that the first words out of my mouth after I took my place at the table were, "Well, I ran into a tree on my way over here," goes to show that I have a long way to go before I become, say, a sophisticated magazine editor.
      Speaking of becoming a sophisticated magazine editor, while I was at said happy hour, a woman from the advertising department of our office asked me what I would do with my life career-wise if I only had two months left to live.  If I could do anything, what would it be?  Disregard money, training, what have you.  My first answer was a very non-committal, "..I don't know. Maybe publishing? I could read manuscripts," to which she responded, "No." Wrong answer.  Since then I've been thinking a lot about her question.  I think it's an important one, but I'm also not sure if I have the experience or knowledge to answer it yet. I feel like there are so many jobs out there that I don't even know exist, and since I've basically spent most of my time in the classroom the past few years instead of out in the workforce, I haven't even explored the ones I know of, like being a sophisticated magazine editor.  That said, I have come up with a few more options that may have a little more to them than my initial response:

1. Jodi Foster's job in The Silence of the Lambs.  I used to think that when I grew up I might be a forensic scientist, or whatever you would call someone who goes to a crime scene and pieces together how the crime happened based on what's there and how it all looks.  Now I think interviewing a serial killer takes the cake. How could you not be intrigued by someone who describes eating a man's liver like it was a pork chop?  If only I had Clarice's double major in psychology and criminology under my belt. So close.
2. Working in a flower shop.  Because arranging bouquets is the most obvious runner-up to hanging out with psychopaths.  But really. I would love to work in a flower shop. Specifically, this flower shop:

Sammy's Flowers. A week or so ago I went into the shop and pleaded my case as a desperate college grad who was willing to do anything and everything, whatever it took, to fulfill her dream of arranging flowers  They actually let me throw together a bouquet for what I hope will not be the first and last time. Really, I'd do anything.
3. I would write. Something. Something awesome. Probably not books, although the one about aliens I started in middle-school had serious potential. In the meantime, I write this blog. That's what this is, by the way. Practice.
     For this last one, I might take the cue of another Alisha Gorder. Yes, there's another woman out there with my name, and she is living one of my possible lives.  According to her LinkedIn profile, the first hit when you Google search my name, Alisha is the editor of a health newsletter in New York City and has also worked as a freelance reporter for the New York Times. But there's more. Her mother-in-law's name is Gordeen Gorder.  My mom's name is Gayleen Gorder. If the Twighlight Zone music isn't playing in your head right now, something is wrong. So, while I'm trying to figure out the answer to the question posed to me at that fateful happy hour, why not create a LinkedIn profile and try and connect with my namesake? The College Career Center has been telling me to make a profile for months. I just haven't had a good enough reason to do so until now.