My new friend, Gene

Tonight I was out wandering the neighborhood, looking for the bus stop I'll need for work, when I ran into Gene.  He was folding some clothes he just got for free and said he needed a bag to put them in, so I offered to give him an Ecobag.  When I came back from my car with the bag we ended up talking for a couple of hours.  He is homeless right now, and struggles with addiction, but is going to recovery meetings and is on a list for housing.  He was all over the place tonight, and couldn't sit still.  However, I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation.  We talked about philosophy, theology, politics, homelessness, etc.  I wish I'd had a notebook with me because he has quite a wealth of knowledge!  I'm sure we could have talked for many more hours, but it was getting late, so I needed to get home.  We're planning to meet next week at Powell's, where he's going to introduce me to The Loeb Classics.  I can hardly wait!

Worky-worky

So, I got a job.  I'm so thankful to end the draining cycle of my savings account, and the firm seems very nice.  I'm looking forward to meeting new people and feeling like I've accomplished something at the end of the day.  As much as I have l-o-v-e-d this little break, I have to admit that there is something a little unnatural about doing nothing with your day for this many days on end.  I'm ready to get back to work!  Now, I have to go shopping.  Too bad I can't wear jeans everyday like my last job!

The traveling book

A lady at church brought some 3/4/5 grade art projects on Sunday.  She had a box full of blank journal/art books made by her students.  The purpose of the project was to send them out into the world and have them passed around, filled up, and see if they make it back to the school.  I think this is so cool!  So, I grabbed one (the most simple design, of course) and have made my mark and am now ready to pass it on.  There are so many people I would love to give it to.  Kinda wanna make my own little book.  : )

Read a quote from Anne Lamott this afternoon.  "You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."  Hmm... sounds like something W ought to ponder.  And you don't even need to say it, "they think their God hates America, they attacked us first!"  Because two wrongs don't make a right.

Saw this sticker on the side of a mailbox on my walk home from church this morning.

I need to ponder that quote above, too.  I know my hate is hazardous.  It's taken me a long time to figure this out in my own life, but it has been mostly hazardous to me.  Of course it effects those around you, and we can cause harm and destruction to others if we choose.  But mostly I've learned that my hate and anger is keeping me in bondage, not them.  As I've taken notice of other people's example, people who don't hold on to hate even when it seems justified, for a split second I feel like the offender hasn't received enough punishment, but almost in an instant I realize that my friend is free of hurt and pain because they chose to walk away, to not retaliate, to forgive.  In reality they have given themselves a gift, a freedom.  I'm still not good at practicing this personally, but I'm trying.

Reality

It's like adulthood has all of a sudden settled in this week.  And I'm completely not okay with this.  I think this has come about partly because I'm finally living in my very own space.  Like seriously, for the first time in my life.  I moved out when I was 17, but I moved into a basement apartment in my Grandparent's house, so it wasn't totally like being on my own & half of the basement was still filled with their things, so it wasn't really "my space".  Then I got married & lived in base housing.  Lame.  Then with parents & roommates ever since.  So not only am I finally in my own apartment where everything is mine, but my parents are in town visiting this weekend, so I'm hosting & feeling all adult having my parents in "my home".  So there is that, and the fact that I'm stressing about the lack of income.  I got my quarterly insurance bill in the mail today & wanted to cry.  Like it's not bad enough getting raped for health insurance premiums when you have a job... this just sucks.  Do I really fork out a small fortune for the just in case, when I might need that small fortune to keep this roof over my head if I'm not employed soon?  (Not to even mention the fact that this money could be put to better use by feeding hundreds of orphans in Africa, but don't even get me started.)  On the other hand, can I afford not to?  What if?  Sometimes being an adult is less than fun.  I'm not really enjoying this little life choice right now.

Laundry.  I never questioned it.  You separate whites, darks, lights, towels, etc.  It never occurred to me to do it any other way than the way my parents taught me.  Recently I've learned that people do their laundry all willie-nilly just throwing in towels with their shirts and other crazy what have you.  Blasphemy, I say!  In fact just a couple of days ago Katie and I were discussing towel storage options for the shoebox I live in and she said something about "well you probably just use the same couple of towels over and over anyway..." and honest to goodness I tell you it never occurred to me to not wait until all of the towels I had were dirty and to wash them in their own separate, special little load.  It's a brand new world, Internet.  Today I went down to the laundry room to wash my sheets, and sadly the cheap-o washers they have here don't give you an option for small, medium, large loads so I felt like it was such a waste of water (and my quarters) to just wash a couple of sheets when it donned on me: I should run upstairs and grab some more dirty laundry and throw it all in at once!  And what do you know?  The world didn't stop spinning.  It's like it's perfectly okay for me to wash sheets, napkins and towels all at the same flippin' time.  Genius!

[Just realized you can post without a title.  And I realized how stupid and insensitive I can be without trying, so I took the title to this post down.  I am sorry.]

So much to blog about

I should make a list of things I want to write about, because I walk around thinking about little blog posts all day, but then never feel it when I sit down at the computer.  Then I forget all about them.  Sad day.  Anyway, here is a quickie to show what I've done today (which isn't much, as usual!).  Oh, and to document the super fun progressive dinner Katie and I had this weekend.

Here is my wall.  It isn't perfect, and there are a few I want to adjust a couple of inches, but I gave up on it being perfect because there are more important things in the world to do than make sure the picture frames in your living room look perfectly scattered and not at all like you spent hours arranging them to look un-arranged.  I'll just add more some day.  Here you have it:

I suppose you want to see photos of the rest of the apartment.  I never did post those, did I?  What can I say?  It's rough being unemployed without Internet access.  DID I MENTION I HAD INTERNET INSTALLED TODAY?  Because I did, and do I ever love it!

The mess the morning after unloading the truck.

The after shot of the living room.

[I'm trying to ignore the fact that I must have been smoking crack when I took these images because why the heck is the towel all crooked, and the bathroom isn't looking so hot, either.  Please don't look too closely!]  The kitchen is too small to really stand in it and take a photo, so you'll just have to trust me that to the left of the doorway there is a tiny little counter & sink, and to the right there is a tiny fridge with my microwave sitting on top.  There is only one electrical outlet in the whole kitchen!

Yeah, so pretty much same deal with the bathroom.  Too small to really show it to you, so why don't you just come visit and see it for yourself!  Hope you won't mind scooting under the sink to sit on the toilet.  There is a claw foot tub to the right.  It's cute, but not that fun to shower in.

The bedroom isn't anything exciting and it's too hard to get a picture of the closet you could appreciate.  It's surprisingly big, which is a good thing since everything else is super small and I need a place to put my spoons and toilet paper.

Are y'all on twitter yet?  What are you waiting for?  Just do it.  It only takes a minute, go ahead, you can come back.  If you're cool, then you already saw my tweets and know that Katie June was in town visiting me this weekend!  Sunday we spent the day eating.  Well, actually, we did take a couple hours out to go to church, but other than that I'd say it's a fair assessment to say we did nothing else but eat good food.

Started out at the Waffle Window for breakfast.  Before we go any further it just needs to be said that if you ever come to Portland and don't get a waffle here you have completely wasted your trip.  Katie had the huckleberry and Meyer lemon curd waffle and I had the Oregon strawberry waffle.  We split a biscuits and gravy (which were okay, but I've had better, and seriously? who needs anything besides a waffle here?).

Sorry the photo quality isn't that great, but it was a fantastic waffle!  Did I mention they charge a crazy $3.50 - 4.00 for these bad boys?  So. Good.

I mean how cute is the Waffle Window?  You know you're dying to check it out!  And I know what you're thinking... was this really last weekend or last winter?  Yes, my friends, its that cold here right now, you need to wear a sweater.  When I said I wanted seasons it was still supposed to include summer.  I have no idea what this is all about in June.

After church we wandered around a bit and I've been dying to show her City Market since I discovered it, so we tried their brie sandwiches (perfect, by the way) and sat at a sidewalk table and enjoyed the afternoon.

They had Mexican coke, too!  That was a treat.  

Afterwards we walked back to the apartment and chilled for a bit.  Thought about doing something with the day, but then decided against that.  We made a plan to do a "progressive dinner" and worked hard searching through magazines and sifting through menus to find where our palettes would take us.

The first stop was Serrato's, or the Snail Restaurant, as I like to call it.  We made it just in time for happy hour, so we each had a cocktail, and split a caesar salad and calamari.  Which was probably the best of both I've ever had.  I'll be going back often!  We walked all over Nob Hill and I showed her Zupan's before we decided on a dinner spot.  We chose Bartini since they have an all day Sunday happy hour and that's always a good thing!  We had smoked cheese fondue that was really good, and since it was happy hour was only $5.00!  So, we had martinis, too!

We had to go back to the apartment and change into elastic pants our shoes.  And I regret to tell you that I left my purse because we were just going to dessert, and well, forgot my camera.  So you're missing out on the most beautiful part of our progressive dinner!  We had decided to go to Papa Haydn's for dessert long before we thought up the dinner plan.  Their dessert menu is longer than the restaurant's, so we knew it had to be a good sign, and we were right.  It was a tough decision, but I went with the chocolate truffle cake and Katie had the lemon chiffon cake.  Oh good heavens!  It was just perfect, I don't know what else to tell you, except go there right now.  It was a lovely setting (we ate outdoors all evening), amazing dessert with great presentation and the server was super nice and very attentive even though we only had dessert.  Just go.

Our leisure progressive dinner lasted four hours, and Katie and I decided we could travel Europe together since we both love eating so much.  And at the Snail Restaurant when she suggested I make a notebook of places I've tried & what's good/what's not so I could recommend places when people come to visit, I immediately pulled a Moleskin out of my purse and started writing down hours, cross streets and notes on the food, because although she may have been joking, we both knew it was a great idea!  And she let me take pictures of our food.  These are important qualities in a friend.

Don't know where to start

Finally got the internet right here in my very own little apartment.  I'm so excited I don't even know where to start!  Email, maps and searching - oh my!

They play it loud here

As I sit in the coffee shop, absolutely loving the music they're playing, I'm surfing the internet for anything and everything that comes to mind JUST BECAUSE I CAN.  I don't know who Emilie is in my building, but I really wish she'd fix what ever is going on so that I can continue hooking up to her network.  Not having internet access at home is totally the pits.  But so is paying for it, so I shouldn't complain.

Just a quick update (I need to get back to Googling unimportant things like: why are cats pupils not round?  BECAUSE I CAN.) I'm not even sure what all I've been doing for the last several days.  A whole lot of this and that, I suppose.  I've been busy, I know that.  But it's a different kind of busy.  Like I'm always doing something, but I'm never in a rush or have a deadline.  It's glorious!  All I can think is "why on earth have I been rushing around like a mad woman the last several years?  This life is SO much better."  I know I have to get a job sooner or later, but I don't want this pace to end.  I'm perfectly content getting a fraction as much "done" in life in exchange for enjoying it.