Portlandia

I've never been to the Pacific Northwest, although it's always intrigued me, or should I say us. Our western adventures have been few, San Francisco and surroundings. Napa and Sonoma and a little bit further in, Santa Fe and Taos in New Mexico. That's it, never had any interest in Las Vegas or Los Angeles and Southern California, that may sound strange to most people but from what I've seen and heard there isn't much there that intrigues me. The Pacific Northwest though is a whole other story, I've always felt the lure to visit this part of the country, maybe it was Twin Peaks, who knows. So this year we decided to give Europe a break, much to their relief I'm sure, and went North and West. 

First stop, Portland. We arrived late on a Friday night and after picking up our car drove to our hotel in the southwest downtown part of town, Hotel DeLuxe;

and all I could think of as we drove through it's charming streets was how much it reminded me of Philadelphia, which is a good thing, I love Philly. It was an auspicious arrival, when we drove up a car pulled up behind us and a bride and her new groom giddily stumbled out, she in a charmingly voluminous somewhat quirky and quite beautiful dress, he in a blue-green suit carrying a small green vase of white dahlias. They were happily a little bit drunk and I hoped she wouldn't trip on her dress as I followed them up the lobby stairs, she didn't. So the first night brought us with a smile, one I kept on for the remainder of my stay because I have to say, I fell in love with Portland. It is not a small city yet it feels like one. The East and West are divided by the beautiful Willamette River which goes into their wine region in the Willamette Valley, a happy little one hour jaunt at most, the river is crossed by five distinct bridges. The North and South is divided by Burnside Street; the home of Powell's Books,

the largest independent bookstore in the world taking up an entire city block and four glorious floors of every kind of book one could possibly imagine, so large and full they give you a map to navigate it. I like to call it Heaven. They have a fabulous public transportation system of buses and light rails that run so frequently I wondered why we rented a car. They have a fabulous array of restaurants and innovative chefs and since they are surrounded by beautiful Oregonian farms, a farm to table movement that is evident in each dish.

Then they have the Portland Farmer's Market,

situated in the aptly titled parks section

directly in front of Portland State University. Hard to find a more beautiful setting or a more beautiful market, or a more perfect way to spend your first Saturday morning.

And here come the flowers!

Which were so irresistible I had to buy me some little sweet peas.

So that was day one.

A Perfect Pair

A few months ago while visiting Alicia at Prunus I clicked over to a blog she was recommending. Jorge Bayo, writes beautifully. His prose is poetic, lyrical and from the heart. I was immediately enthralled and added him to my blog list. In addition to being a wonderful wordsmith he is an artist, a painter, which isn't surprising. His medium is watercolor, my favorite. His paintings are soft, sensitive, slightly undefined as watercolor tends to be, somewhat other worldly. A few days ago I hopped over to his latest post which he titled "Parejas Perfectas", (I forgot to mention, Jorge lives in Madrid and writes in Spanish which I am grateful I read and write fluently). The post was about a veterinary clinic in Madrid which needed some fundraising; he volunteered to assist them by donating some watercolors then they would mount an exposition of these, sell them and raise funds that way. Being that this was a veterinary clinic and he is a dog daddy his idea was to take pictures of people with their pets which he would duplicate in watercolor. Here's where this gets really fun, he was asking his readers to email him a picture with their pet, the perfect pairs of the title, and those would be the paintings donated to the clinic. He promised to send a photo of the painting to those he chose to paint. I mulled it over for all of ten seconds thinking what do I have to lose and sent him these two photos of the perfect pairs in my house.

I hit the send button and completely forgot about it.

Three days later I was taken aback when I saw an email come in from him. It was a lovely note saying how he hoped that I liked what he had done and asking permission to publish them on his blog. Imagine that, asking permission to publish his own paintings! He also said they would go on sale at the fundraiser for 50 euro. He said he had been overwhelmed by the response and was exhausted with all the paintings but while doing each one he didn't feel it since he was in such deep concentration. I asked him if he minded that I publish them in my blog which he was more than fine with. Then with some trepidation and more than a little nervous I opened the attachments.

And here they are, the unveiling of my very own Jorge Bayo's!

I am humbled.

Poppy Love

My next door neighbor has self seeding poppies on her side of the shared flower bed. Since they are self seeding and sway in the breeze due to that crepe paperiness of theirs some of them have self seeded my way...along with a little coaxing. So imagine my 10 year old shouts of glee when I came home yesterday and found this blooming in my flower bed,

which I immediately brought inside, and took zillions of pictures of. Lucky you, only three for your viewing pleasure.

And speaking of swaying in the breeze, a couple of years ago while replanting a side garden with coneflowers and rubdekias I planted something which I could of sworn was labeled as a Shasta daisy. It didn't bloom for two years but I didn't pull it out because I didn't want to make that "oh that's a weed (not really, $30 plant)" mistake. And I have to say this time around patience has been a virtue!

My very own

breezy Japanese Anemones!

Gratuitous Max picture, cause hey, it's all about him.

Lilac Time

This is what is outside my kitchen window.

When I open the windows and it is swayed by that just perfect breeze, that incredible aroma just comes right through and I breathe as slowly and deeply as I can so I can savor it. Last year we needed to trim it but missed the window of time to ensure that it would continue blooming so this year it is massive which means more blooms; all the better 

...in the dining room

...the foyer

... the bedroom where some of us nap all day

with the sweet scent that is never around long enough.

Wish I could do scratch and sniff!

Flowers for Jane

It's been a while since Jane hosted one of her fabulous FITH parties. So when the call came on Friday I panicked. Most of my flowers aren't ready for cutting yet. Lilacs are coming in beautifully but not ready. The tons of tulip bulbs I bought in Amsterdam and planted last Fall got a bit of a chomping from the huge deer population, by the time I noticed and sprayed them with the concoction only five buds were left. Next year I'll get them sooner....she said.

Sooooooo, Trader Joe's it is.

Hope all goes well!

Native New Yorkers

On Friday evening we went to the ballet

at the beautiful David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center.

It was a beautiful performance of 3 works from the Balanchine Black and White Series with two intermissions. And as is my wont to do during intermissions in the theater, rather than get up and go get a drink or stand in the usually very lengthy line in the ladies' room, I stay in my seat and intently people watch. 

As I sat there studying the audience with close scrutiny a couple of things occurred to me. One was that they had no idea, or cared, that I was staring with such sharp attention.

The other more revealing observation was that these were the real New Yorkers. The audiences who attend the ballet, exclusive of the tourist packed Nutcracker during Christmas, and for the most part the theater; again exclusive of all the Disney mega musicals, are the inhabitants of this great and glorious city.

And the third, OK that's more than a couple, was how different they are than the common perception. By common I mean how people throughout the rest of the country and many parts of the world perceive New Yorkers to be from how they are portrayed in movies, books, media, etc. 

i.e. It is the finance capital of the world so everybody's rich and obnoxious. Wrong, yes there are a handful of people like that but for the most part although pretty upper middle class there is nothing obnoxious here at all, they'll talk to anybody, about anything at any time any place. And it's just because they want to.

It is the fashion capital of the world, after Paris, so everyone is young, beautiful, sophisticated and decked out in designer duds. Wrong again, and here's where I have the most fun spying.

Demographics show that the majority of the population falls into the middle aged category, and by middle aged I don't mean 65, we won't live to be 130; I mean somewhere between 40 and 60. They're pretty normal looking, ranging from gorgeous to downright ugly but mostly somewhere in-between. Just like the rest of the world. And the fashion, well here they get really interesting and such fun to watch. They are, in a word, unique. They will wear whatever they want regardless of whether it is the latest style or whether it's this designer or that designer, if it's appropriate for this event or that event, mix and match quirky colors, an evening gown when everyone else is in jeans or vice versa, open toed sandals in the dead of Winter, boots with shorts in the Summer. Diamonds and pearls with jeans, winter hats have a life of their own. And they carry it off with a confidence and aplomb that somehow says "I don't care, I like it, it looks good!" Which brings me to sophistication. With an attitude like that, I would say they ooze it.

Is this a love letter? It didn't start out that way, but I guess it is.

Ooh and who's that beautiful, sophisticated, fashion plate?