Slacker, thy name is Andrew
September 30, 2008
It’s been, what? Weeks since I last wrote? I’m just lazy. I have no excuse. Mostly I’m just annoyed that I just haven’t wanted to take the time to sit down and write. Of course, to make matters worse this is a continuation of a saved draft, so that means that I managed to suck it up and started writing…and then stopped. Nice work, Andrew. Bravo.
This past weekend Hanne and I drove to Astoria and stayed a couple of nights, and though it wasn’t too far away, it was nice to get out of Portland for even just that brief amount of time. Sometimes I feel like we get in ruts too easily, and though we fall right back in afterward, it’s nice to break routine even briefly. Our destination was originally picked so that I could try the two brewpubs there in Astoria, but once I read about a brewfest taking place this past weekend, I knew it was fate that we should go then. We stayed in a nice bed and breakfast, and though the room left little maneuvering space for us, it sufficed as a place to leave our stuff while we explored the city. Oh, who am I kidding? We drank a lot and explored very little. The brewfest was nice, and there were some delicious beers. The whole thing was for charity, and local breweries donated 30 beers for the event. It was one of the better brewfests we’ve been to, if only because they had real pint glasses for us to use to sample the beer and the music, while a bit loud, was consistently good and audible in the entire area. The other breweries there in the city were solid, and we returned with four new pint glasses: two of the brewfest glasses, one from Fort George Brewing (which, by the way, had some excellent food), and one from Astoria Brewing Company to replace one my Dad bought me several years ago that mysteriously broke between his house and mine.
We also drove over to Fort Stevens State Park, which is at the mouth of the Columbia where it flows into the Pacific. You couldn’t exactly go right to the mouth, but we were able to see both river and ocean at the same time. Very nice. We didn’t make it across the 3.8 mile bridge that runs from Astoria into Washington across the Columbia, but we did note that there’s a yearly 10k run across it that might be fun to do one year. I know I’d drive back out to Astoria to run across that bridge.
Astoria itself is a very nice town. Small, but not too small, if you know what I mean. We didn’t do everything we wanted to do because Hanne wanted to get home and do some work, but even after a brewfest and two brewpubs (and a mediocre restaurant), she did relent and let me detour on the way home to go to a new McMenamins. That makes 49 for me, and that might put me over the top of my Dad’s count. This will require some comparison, I believe.
My college roommate Dan was here recently and stayed with Hanne and myself, and so we made sure to give him the Portland treatment. He’s been here before so we didn’t need to see the sights and explore too much of the city, but we did take him to a few restaurants that we like, ate a lot of good food, and drank a lot of good beer and wine. One night we cooked a grand old meal that included cheese and crackers before dinner along with a selection of fine beers, a nice meal, copious amounts of wine, and some enthusiastic Wii games that elft all three of us sore for a couple of days. Only one broken wine glass, too! Fortunately it was one of our crappy Wal-Mart glasses, and not our nice Crate & Barrel ones. As I said, enthusiastic Wii games and copious amounts of wine. That particular glass fell victim to one round of full body contact darts, which we invented that very night, believe it or not.
Hanne’s been very busy lately, both with classes as well as her internship with PacifiCorp that she started yesterday. She’ll only be working two days a week, but I think she’s enjoying having something other than schoolwork to do. Plus, that means she’ll have a bit of money coming in, which I know she’ll appreciate.
Last night Hanne and I went out to a local wine bar to take advantage of their “Mac & Malbec” special that ran through September: $5 mac & cheese, $3/glass-$11-bottle Malbec. The food was delicious, the wine was very nice, and we started talking about Thanksgiving. My Dad has the big kitchen and the dining room table, but I think Hanne and I are going to try and host Thanksgiving this year in our new apartment. It’s going to require some additional seating and using the leaf for my table–plus a pretty serious game of culinary Tetris–but I think we can pull it off. Our main concern has to do with the oven more than anything else, since it’s small and already required new baking sheets. I think it’s big enough for a turkey, though, and that gives me the perfect excuse to buy myself a nice roasting pan. Well, I have a nice roasting pan already, but I’m not sure that a turkey will fit in my 9″x13″ stainless steel job. Any excuse to buy new cookware is always appreciated.
Speaking of cookware, my birthday came and went, though with very little fanfare. I’ll get to the connection, don’t worry. Hanne had class until late that night, so I intended to celebrate on my own. My boss took me out for a beer, which turned into three beers and could have kept going on, but I intended to cook dinner for myself that evening. My evening’s meal consisted of a delicious ribeye steak topped with sauteed onion and garlic and the boiled-down marinade, oven roasted potatoes, and steamed broccoli. I had planned to drink a bottle of Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA while cooking dinner, a marvelous beer with 20% alcohol purchased especially for that very evening last October, carefully kept out of sunlight and direct heat, but in my rush to leave for work that morning I neglected to refrigerate it. Booo! I didn’t even make the mental connection until I had the glass in my hand and I was reaching for the bottle, which made me feel very silly. For some reason, my brain didn’t comprehend that I was leaning down to pick up a bottle that was room temperature. No worries, though–I had plenty of wine with my meal.
So, on to the cookware connection. Hanne’s gift to me was something that I’ve wanted for years but never taken the time to purchase–a morter and pestle. I remember wishing I had one back in college, and every time I’ve cooked pizza since then I’ve wished for one. Rosemary just doesn’t crumble very very when making pizza dough, and a morter and pstle works much better to crush it. I’m sure I can probably think up a lot of other uses, but she managed to read my mind. Again. I’d ask her how she does it, but no matter what level of telepathy I think she might have is offset by the reality that most of the time, I’m a pretty transparent guy and I tend to mention things like wanting a morter and pestle and forget about it later.
The rest of this week should be pretty low-key, which in my mind feels like things haven’t been recently. Soemtimes I feel like things really aren’t low-key unless I go into a week with no plans. I may end up doing a lot of things, but I feel less busy if I don’t have my week planned out ahead of me. This Thursday I plan on watching the Vice Presidential debate with some friends, consuming alcohol as we point and laugh at Joe “I like the taste of my feet which is why I stick them in my mouth so often” Biden and Sarah “I can see Russia from my house!” Palin. I’m not expecting a blowout or smackdown, but let’s just say that I would prefer if the debate ended with at least one clip that innundates YouTube and that the media plays endlessly, like the “You’re no Jack Kennedy” line from the ‘88 VP debates.
And with that morsel of excitement simmering for the next two days, I should probably get some work done. Break’s over.
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