Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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got that wrong
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(nobody does!)

Like my brownhouse:
   also a soccer sports bar
Sunday, July 8 2012

location: northeast Portland, Oregon

While Gilly and Gretchen went off somewhere this morning, I wandered the nearby neighborhood on my own. I drifted into Hot Lips pizza and took one of each of their two available vegan pizzas-by-the-slice. One used Daiya cheese and the other no cheese, vegan or otherwise. Because the crust and sauce was so good, the cheeseless pizza was delicious; I actually liked it better than the one with Daiya (which is difficult to meter out in the narrow butter zone between too little and too much).
Next I went to Extracto, an unpretentious neighborhood coffee shop with free WiFi and enough hipsters to be entertaining (but not so many as to be oppressive; it's another difficult-to-meter butter zone thing). On the walk back to Gilly and Allen's place, I snapped a number of photos, including one of an old muscle car gradually being lost beneath a layer of lichens.
My return coincided with that of Gilly and Gretchen, and so the three of us set off on our next Portland adventure. This time we drove down to the Hoyt Arboretum in the steep terrain west of the city and walked around among the groves of human planted trees. The groves tended to be monocultures of various evergreen species, including Pacific Coast Redwoods, Lebanon Cedars, and Norway Spruce. After sitting for awhile on a viewing platform in the redwood grove, we walked back to the parking lot along a trail that happened to have a good many edible berries, including a mysterious reddish berry with a delightfully tangy citrusy flavor (later I would learn that this was a Thimbleberry).
On the drive back through Portland, we stopped at a semi-outdoor brewpub called Migrations, and there we sort of began the process of reprising all the overeating mistakes we'd made yesterday. We ordered a bowl of peanuts in the shell and a hummus plate along with (for Gilly and me but not Gretchen) the Lupulin IPA, which I found to be nearly perfect. Migrations isn't just a brewpub; it also acts as a sports bar for international soccer games on its one flat screen teevee. According to the house rules, it's always happy hour so long as a soccer game is playing.
The Bye and Bye has a sister location called the Sweet Hereafter further south in Portand, and this was the place we went for dinner. It's a very similar venue, with a murky bar scene and an outdoor area in the back where meals are eaten at picnic tables. The customers are perhaps not quite as tattooed as they are at the Bye and Bye, but a prerequisite for joining the staff seems to be a throat tattoo at the minimum. The Sweet Hereafter is a little nicer than the Bye and Bye, but that may only be a function of its newness. As for the menu, though it also consists entirely of vegan comfort food, it is almost completely different from the menu at the Bye and Bye. I ordered the Buffalo Soy Curl sandwich which was delicious, and yet again I couldn't help but eat the whole thing.
[REDACTED]
On the way back out to the car, we passed a restaurant that Gilly thought might be "paleo-friendly." A guy nearby said that paleo wasn't all it did, but then later he admitted that he himself was paleo, causing Gretchen to say something derogatory. I think the guy might have actually been the restaurant's owner.


Moss on a brick wall near Gilly and Allen's house.


These colors don't turn brown and fall off in chunks.


Lichens on a muscle car.


Flower in Portland.


Flower in Portland.


Flowers in Gilley and Allen's front yard, with Gretchen.


Flowers in Gilley and Allen's front yard, with Gretchen.


A scene "keeping Portland weird" in Gilly and Allen's neighbor's yard.


Moss on trees in Hoyt Arboretum.


Gretchen and Gilly on the platform in the redwood grove in Hoyt Arboretum.


Thimbleberry in Hoyt Arboretum. Sorry, all the ripe berries have been eaten.


A milkweed flower ball.


For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?120708

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