When Tom visited two weeks ago, he mentioned an area in Portland with interesting shops. It's on NW 23rd street, from Burnside north for 10 or 15 blocks. That's where we went yesterday.
We went to Noah's New York bagels, Escape From, a New York style pizza place; the pizza was great. We found a replacement for our defunct toaster, in a four-bangin' Kitchen-Aid with candy-apple red sides. The theory is that Kitchen-Aid appliances last a loooonnggg time. If it lasts about five times longer than the generic ones we've had, then we'll be money ahead. And of course enjoying the luxury features along the way.
I bought some jeans off the shelf from the Lucky jean company. Luckily they were half off, or I would have paid as much as the toaster for one pair of jeans with about half the life worn out of them, saving me the work of putting all that wear into them. Convenience costs.
I almost had to get them for the novelty of getting pants that fit right off the shelf.
Recently I heard about the benefits of bathing in sea-salt. So, all day, starting with our visit to Lush, I kept my eyes peeled for a decent price on sea-salt. Supposedly it can cure all your problems, which is an attractive proposition. Unfortunately the sea-salt harvesters must be aware of the elixir-like properties of their product, because it costs more than Evian water. We once bought 25 pounds of table salt from Costco for $2.50. The best price I found on sea-salt yesterday would have run me $4,000 for an equivalent 25 pound bag! Come on people, this stuff is found on three-fourths of the planet's surface. What happened to the principles of supply and demand?
Moving on.
We also hit the World Market, where their cheap bags ripped open causing one of our group to smash a bottle of wine on the floor. They were very professional, realized they got stuck with horrible, rip-prone bags, and immediately replaced the items without question. Although Bun-Bun, who was in tow all day, came away smelling like she'd been too long at the wharfs.
What was fascinating though, was the magical powder they used to clean up the spilled wine. I'm going to have to try to look it up and recommend it to everyone for liquid spills on hard floors. They just sprinkled it on and voila! Swept away an entire bottle of wine with a broom and a dust-pan, clean as the day it was made. The kids were impressed by a statue of a duck, and Arthur insisted that I peer into the hole that he found, where you could see inside it. A perfectly round hole, just below the tail-feathers provided a choice view to the internals of the 8 foot tall duck.
Finishing up, we hit Moonstruck for a truffle and some hot chocolate, a kids store for some new rain boots and slickers. Got the matching dinosaur type for Arthur and the frog pattern for Jamey. Then off to Finnegan's, dinner at Isabel, Asian/Mexican fine dining; Powell's
10 hours, all tallied, of fun in the city.
6 comments :
Sounds like heaven! What a fun day!
Mom
Julie and I ended up visiting the area on our date and had dessert at a really nice place, but I will have to ask her the name of it. I am not kidding, the desserts were AMAZING!
So, what do the internals of a duck consist of? Based on what some of their tribe left on Grumpy's doorstep many moons ago, I would opine that "it ain't pretty!"
Your Aunt Susan should have been responsible for cleaning up of the aforementioned mess, but, then being less grumpy than I am now, I think I took care of it.
CORRECTION!! CORRECTION!!
The Grand Mother cleaned it up!!
[Sorry about that, dear!]
Well it was mostly empty, but there were many ragged pieces of metal crisscrossing the space in there. I didn't look too long. Something just didn't feel right about having my face too long at that portal.
OK. I understand your concern!
By the way, you said, "..Kitchen-Aid appliances last a loooonnggg time. If it lasts about five times longer than the generic ones we've had, then we'll be money ahead. And of course enjoying the luxury features along the way."
All of that is true, only if the quality of toast that is ejected from said expensive device is as good or better quality than that of the "generic model". The Grand Mother and Grumpy have had bad experiences with some (unnamed) top brands of toasters: inconsistent browning of different kinds and brands of bread, for example.
Try, in succession, a slice of white bread and then a slice of multi-grain -- both at the same (medium brown) setting. If they both come out reasonably acceptable, then you've sold me!!
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