#2 - Highlight of Trip to Portland

Brought to you in Haiku

Stand on Holy Ground

Sacred to Book Addicts All

The Temple of Powell's

If this massive bookstore presiding in downtown Portland, with all of its gastronomic and cultural allures, were to be situated in a cornfield in Iowa, miles from any other touristy delights, it would still be worth a multiple day car-trip in a decrepit vehicle, with only mediocre hamburger stands available to stave off starvation. I have spent days sharing the many attractions in visiting The City of Roses, both personal and universal. Let us not delude ourselves for one moment that there wasn’t one destination, and one destination only, that this fanatic of all things bound in ink and paper, had focused and fixed in her sights.

The opportunity to walk into a bookstore roughly the size of a small village, with its towering shelves, loaded with the wisdom of the ages, and the delights of the most fanciful and creative minds of all generations, is like overdosing on an addictive substance that has hitherto been meted out only in responsible doses. I have to confess, that of the number of times I have been inside Powell's, I have spent 99% of my time in one section, and one section only: The section that has an aisle labeled Klickitat Street, the section that has diminutive furniture that only allows one portion of my seating implement, the section that does not require a reading ability over 12-years-old. When I go I really plan to visit other floors and venues, but really there is no need. The youth section, AKA the Rose Room, is an intoxicating mix of variety, (oh so many choices), and juicy bargains. My principal and I have an understanding that if I ever have the opportunity to walk into this pantheon of excess I will be spending a portion of my budget before I find the exit.

The picture book section is nothing if not enchanting. It is a mix of the new, the recent, and the classic. My sister claims that preceding our visit during the week of humidity, there was a much more trying week on the temperature front. I’m not sure she has me convinced it was worse than what we lived through, but she did pass on this delightful antidote. During the fabled heat wave the unair-conditioned were forced to flee to venues that would lend them aid and comfort in the form of electrically cooled air. Movie theaters and libraries became popular hang-outs. During this time she managed a visit to Powell’s. When she walked into the picture book section she was greeted with the heart-warming, and slightly troubling, sight of countless parents and their children sprawled about the picture book room, sharing the love of reading in cool comfort. She compared it to news footage of refugee camps on the borders of war-torn countries. If I ever need to flee for my safety I want a room full of luscious reading at the other end.

#3 Highlight of Trip to Portland

The Chance be Fed by, and Dork-Out

with My Little Sister
WARNING: overly sentimentally personal and more food talk

Born ten years apart, at either end of six siblings, it took many years into our adulthood, for my younger sister and me to discover that our DNA helixes stored a frightening amount of identical code. Being a fully functional 10-years-old when she joined our family, I alternately found her delightful, adorable, insufferable, and annoying, and then I left home to be grown-up. At some point in our infrequent reunions we discovered we had the same taste in movies, literature, and to our mother’s horror, political leanings. We had both inherited our mother’s love of cooking, and shared the family trait of obsessing over whatever might be leading us by the nose at the moment. She is the one person on this planet that can finish my sentences, and would know exactly what I am referring to given the less and concrete, “Remember the time, we were at the place, and the thing, did that thing with the other thing.” Portland, with all of its many allures, is only more delightful with such a resident.

As I mentioned before we both share a passion for cooking, although the younger of us took it to obsessive heights quite some time ago. In a desire to become proficient at making sublime cuisine from the best ingredients she could round up in her diminutive kitchen, she took the study of cooking to extremes, stopping just shy of cooking school. She has more cookbooks than the 641 section of my public library, although she claims to have culled them at some point in the recent past. If you are lucky enough to have her cook for you, you will wonder why we ever bothered to eat out while we were there. What she can do with her weekly share of fresh produce from her CSA, (community sponsored agriculture), a little olive oil, and preserved lemon, would make Nigela Lawson and Ina Garten sit up and take notice.

A few years ago, possibly after listening to me blather on and on about the wonders of my trade, she decided to go back to school and become a legitimate children’s librarian (unlike myself who merely feigns legitimacy); thus cementing our shared interests into something beyond the superficial to a deep and abiding obsession for the greater good.

#4 Highlight of Trip to Portland

CARTLAND

Food Part 2

Imagine waking up every day and having the foods of the world at your beck and call all within a city block radius. If you were so inclined you would have the opportunity to breakfast in Europe, lunch in Eastern Asia, have a mid-day snack in South America and dine in the Middle East. Downtown Portland offers just such a wonderland. An entire city block, with some spillage onto a few side streets, is lined with food carts of almost every conceivable ethnicity. Say you have a hankering for falafel, but would rather include a side of sesame noodles rather than a cucumber salad, no problem just slide down a few carts, and why you are at it grab an empanada to round out the meal. I didn’t verify the fact, but I believe that every continent was represented. Well maybe not, I didn’t happen to see any Vegemite or Penguin offerings.


The tragedy was that we only had one afternoon to enjoy the cornucopia, limiting the experience to a frustrating few choices. If I never have the chance at a Vietnamese Banh Mi at some point in the near future my life will become a pale shadow of what it should be. And who would have thought those Bosnians could whip up such a tasty sandwich, spinach pie thingy. Yum.

I would like to know who I petition to get a Cartland installed in my Utah suburb? Within walking distance of my school, if you please.

#5 Highlight of Trip to Portland

The Portland City tour of Matt Cartwright’s Whimsy and Function

As I mentioned before my Brother-in-law is an artist who rescues unwanted objects from wasting away their retirement years in the wasteland of the municipal landfill, and resurrects them into amazing and whimsical pieces of functional art. I also stated before Portland is a biker’s paradise; the type of biker that might require a secure object to attach his transportation vehicle to when it is not in use. Portland’s city streets are lined with utilitarian bike racks, most of the unmemorable type. But there is a growing trend for businesses to declare their personality through the type of hitching post they provide for their cycling clientele. Matt has a passionate interest in furthering the bicycling community of his city, both as a participant, and purveyor of utilitarian and aesthetically amusing paraphernalia to facilitate the cities mania. Not only are many of my favorite sculptures of his bicycle related, but most of the raw materials at use in them are the skeletons of former Schwinns and the like.

Mama bike waiting to suckle her young

Giant toothbrushes tied together with floss in front of a dentist's office

Yoga man bike rack

#6 Highlight of Trip to Portland

The Food, the Food, Oh-my-Sweet-Aunt-Agripa THE FOOD.

There is many a bragging point the city of Portland, Oregon can print up and wave about. If you visit you won’t need to pump your own gas nor pay sales tax. There are possibly more bicyclists than motorists. OK most likely not the last one but it sure feels like it when your GPS interpreter (yours truly), malfunctions and sends the Little White Van motoring off on unplanned side streets, which are infested with enough two-wheeled motorists to make a van driver feel like a Lane Bryant rep at an anorexic convention. But hands down the most enticing selling point of the city has to be its cuisine.


My baby sister, whom we were traveling to see, works at Toro Bravo one of hippest-happeningest restaurants about the town. As misfortune would have it she was forced to work the night of our arrival, obliging the weary travelers two, along with sculptor-boy Matt, to make the pilgrimage and partake of some of the most scrumptious Spanish fare, this side of Barcelona. No lie, on our first drive-by at about 8:00 PM the line was out the door and clogging the waiting area, AKA the sidewalk out front, on a Monday night no less - heretofore only seen in Utah at Outbacks and Olive Gardens, during the 5:00 rush. If you are ever lucky enough to visit, there is plenty of Tapas and Paella to tantalize any pallet, but don’t miss the Salt Cod Fritters with Aioli, or the Seared Scallops with Romesco, and if you have room for dessert the Molten Chocolate Cake with vanilla ice cream is a treat.


Toro Bravo also manages to keep the Kid Lit link alive by boasting prints from our favorite bovine Ferdinand the Bull on it's walls. No we didn't get our own pics, but they are there trust me.

Having a restaurant in the family did not stop us from hitting various other eateries about the city, by all means, no. Of the assorted establishments including Dim Sum and pastry shops galore the other stand out has to be Pok Pok, where Thai food breaks with the standard Americanized version of itself and materializes in the sublime. If you go order anything you like, but it is pretty much all about the fish-sauce-caramelized BBQ chicken wings. Oh if only they did mail order.

Never fear, this will not be the last you hear about food.

#7 Highlight of Trip to Portland

Finally understanding the positive implications of the phrase, "But it's a dry heat".




I in no way claim to be a wiz at mathematics, but I believed I was on solid ground in my belief that something as constant as a number, even the number 95, was equal in value whether referring to currency, cupcakes, or temperature. People in my neck of the country like to boast about our arid heat. I could never understand the allure. Give me a temperature in the nonagenarian range and I will be heading to the nearest planet endangering cooling system available.

Then I met Portland, Oregon in August. Imagine every surface of your body coated in a liquid layer of self-generated goo. While your ability to preform basic functions, such as wiping your delicately saturated brow, become slogged down to the the speed of a sloth on Prozac. There are many things to love, adore and relish about Portland, but a heatwave in August is not one of them. As the weather behaves in such a sensible way 95% of the year most of the general population of the city sees no need to have air conditioning, thus rendering it necessary to spend every evening at the movies.


As I walked about the city in my liquid coating, I was reminded of the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle story about the girl who refused to bath for so long she started sprouting radishes. It seemed like delightful, if somewhat distasteful, fantasy at the time. I am here to confirm that if I had stopped bathing, and was sprinkled with the seeds of quick sprouting vegetation while swimming in my layer of sogginess, there is little doubt germination would occur.

#8 Highlight of Trip to Portland

Stopping by the Maryhill Museum to get a gander at just a bit of my Brother-in-Law’s spectacular talent.

Matthew Cartwright is a sculptor of undisputed creative and functional art. He reroutes would-be rubbish from the landfills of Portland, and shapes it into clever, amusing and downright magical landmarks. As we speak, his work is part of the Maryhill 2009 Outdoor Sculpture Invitational.

This is his Malabar Bombax, his representation of the flower of the Red Silk Cotton Tree. It is impressive I know. There will be more evidence of his work before we reach the end of this countdown.

If you chance to wend your way along the Columbia River en route to Portland, may I say the Maryhill is worth a stop for an hour or two. It perches majestically on the Washington side overlooking the river.

The exhibits rang from slightly creepy french mannequin dolls adorned in 1040's fashions, to Ansel Adams prints, to a magnificent array of chess sets, to a Rodin collection, all resting on the initial collection of Eastern European encrusted artifacts donated by Queen Marie of Romania in 1926. This blue-blood managed to be related to both Queen Victoria and Czar Alexander II of Russia.



We didn't make it to the replica of Stonehenge where the Museum's founder, Sam Hill, ashes rest in peace. We will be saving that treat for another visit.