Flannel Shirt

The princess of 51st Avenue

Sunday was the last day for Joan's seventieth birthday celebration. Last year for Christmas Robin sent us a hundred-dollar gift certificate for Salty's, a high end seafood restaurant on the Columbia River. And everyone ate well. That's what we did. I had fish and chips because the surf and turf was just way too expensive to justify. But the fish and chips were high-end, and I had a side of fried artichokes which was good too. Joan had grilled steelhead trout, and Joan's kids got good stuff too. The picture is of Joan's older daughter Kate and her partner Andrew. They're out visiting this week from Asheville.

Above are the folks from across the street. Up here in the Northwest having fried chicken and waffles is a thing. I don't know if it was originally a southern thing, but I've had it once. And it is what it is. I like chicken and I like waffles. And I like them together, but I wouldn't make a habit of it. 

In any case, that's the food tour for the day. 

Someone else's vacation

Meanwhile, up here in Portland, we didn't reach a hundred. Last I heard it was 95, leaning on 96. The folks across the street left us a bunch of cherry tomatoes, plus a pale green zucchini and one large tomato. 

Iz and I got our walks in. We went to WinCo, a grocery chain, to get a big pork butt. Joan'll be making a big pot of pulled pork for the block party on Saturday, and an avocado salad of sorts. 

Joan up some very good steaks tonight. Every once in awhile a good piece of beef is awesome. 

Birthday

Ramona across the street had her fifth birthday last weekend. 

However, the temperature in Portland is going back up. It's going to be in the high nineties with it hitting a hundred on Wednesday. They're saying that it will drop to the low eighties or seventies by the weekend. Joan's daughter Kate, from Asheville, will be coming in on Friday and the big block party is on Saturday. Until then, except for walking the Iz, we will be hiding inside next to the air conditioner. 

The woman working at the Chevron was off when we came by this morning but plenty of other new people came up to visit with her. Things are pretty good. Even my knee has been feeling pretty good lately. 

Tonight Joan made a "low country boil" in her instant pot. Potatoes, sausage, shrimp, garlic and onion. It was pretty darned good. 

By the vegetable garden

I guess that it was inevitable that Ramona was crowned. So she's the princess of 51st Avenue. Dave and Diana have these neat raised beds for growing veggies. Dave brought over a basket of cherry tomatoes. Every time Joan or I walk into the kitchen we sneak another one. Those tomatoes taste so sweet. Joan and her friend Catherine took Joan's daughter Lindsay out for dinner for her birthday (sushi, yuk) so I went over to the food carts. Took Izzy. Once again people came up. A toddler wearing a onesy with horizontal stripes (he looked like he escaped from a prison) wanted to touch her. His mother brought him over and Izzy, ever the lady, licked him. I passed some dog treats to the mom who gave it to the little one who gave them to Izzy. The kid had a big smile. 

I got some lemongrass beef on Vietnamese rice noodles and a couple spring rolls. Nice crispy spring rolls.

The temperature up here has dropped. I think we peaked in the eighties, which was nice. It's supposed to go down a few more degrees every day. There's a little breeze tonight. Iz is lying down under the window. Nice.

Early harvest on 51st Avenue

I'm pretty sure that the folks across the street grew this. They are growing tomatoes. I guess this is another thing that this hot weather is good for. If you give enough water in this hot weather you will be rewarded. 

Portland allows for people to grow in their front yards, and Dave and the folks across the street have had gardens over the last two or three years. On our usual route Izzy and I come across raised beds of vegetables every few houses. Raised to keep the animals out (plus drainage, etc.). There's what I think is a cherry tree, but I haven't seen anything on the tree and the stuff that hit the ground is basically a purplish stain on the sidewalk. 

There is a fig tree on our walk, and the owner put a sign at the bottom of it saying that people are welcome to help themselves. The fruit is small, hard and green, so I guess they'll need some time to ripen. The day they do I suspect that Izzy and I will be there. 

Tomorrow's garbage day so it was a good time to clean out the fridge. Lots of old stuff in it. The old food goes into the green can, compost stuff. They send it out to some place in the country and spread it out and in a few years it will be rich topsoil.

I may be getting used to this heat. But not as used to it as Izzy. I'm not that crazy. 

 

Inspecting the first tomatoes of the season on the block

Back with her family from visiting New York City. Her mom says she flagged down two taxis. 

Before we took Izzy to the dog park we drove out to Costco to gas up the car. She was panting pretty hard. When we got to the park she started throwing up. So that's something new with didn't know about her. She gets carsick. 

After we brought her home to calm down Joan and I went to our favorite Mexican food place and had their carnitas burritos. Carnitas is that great pork. So that was dinner. When we got home the Iz was now hungry, so I gave her a little kibble. She was still hungry so she got a little more. 

She's tuckered out now.

In Las Vegas

It's a great picture, but neither Joan or I were in Las Vegas. 

Watered the lawn yesterday, and steaks on the grill tomorrow. Izzy and I took two nice, long walks. Nothing seems to be nicer for her than taking a long walk and sniffing things. Sometimes if she's sniffing lots of things intently she opens her mouth like she's sighing or it helps the sniff in her snout to circulate, like the flowers and such are all nature's brandy snifters. I'm not sure what she's doing but she's done it enough times that it's not coincidence. I'm going to have to see if there's anything on the internet about this. 

There are lots of things for Izzy to sniff. Flowers. There's a block where there's a cherry tree next to a fig tree along the sidewalk and both are dropping now. Lots of squished and squashed fruit. It seems to send her into ecstacy. And her golden eyes get kind of crazy. 

Well, that was the highlight of my day. Joanie and I had a great shrimp salad, kind of like a shrimp louie, but better. It really was the best salad I've had in years. Wow. Just great. 

New York City

The whole family is on a business trip. 

Let me see. Watered the lawn. Walked Iz. She's feeling more and more secure. She's a real sweetie. 

They're flying off somewhere

While others are flying around the world, or at least somewhere, we across the street. Oh, Izzy and I went on an adventure. We cut across the new medical building parking lot, down fiftieth and then along Brazee for a few blocks. She is in such ecstacy sticking her nose into everything. She just loves traveling along new streets that she's practically dragging me around. I can imagine that her days on the street were wild, running this way and that. I suspect she's had her share of garbage behind the McDonalds and Taco Bells. 

I went down the road a bit to the Kaiser campus in Clackamas, a few miles south of here. The dermatologist gave my face a look over, froze a non-cancerous thing on the back of my right ear. He looked at the other stuff and gave me a thumbs up, so that's good. While I was down there I got some new stuff for my CPAP machine, a new hose and a new facemask. I left it out in the car so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to upgrade my machine. 

It cooled off a lot overnight and it was pleasantly overcast with a nice breeze in the afternoon. This evening when I took out some food scraps for our compost can I thought of how wonderful the weather is. Oh, we'll complain about the weather 90% of the time, but that sweet spot is sweet.

On vacation

The reason you get the pictures of our neighbors' vacation is because, once again, there's no pictures from the usual sources. I keep telling myself to master how to use the camera on my phone if for no other reason than to take pictures of Izzy, Joanie and me. 

There really isn't much happening in sports this time of year. Oh, there's baseball but I've pretty much lost interest with it. There's basketball, which is done until fall. Football training camps open up about a month from now. 

We had that three-day heatwave, or was it four, whatever, I switched to my shorts, but it was chilly this morning so I'm back in jeans. 

Joan made a meal in the instant pot tonight. Hamburger, pasta shells, tomato sauce and spiced up. When it's cooked you mix some grated cheese in it to melt. It's kind of like hamburger helper. Anyway, it hit the spot. 

Oh, check your e-mail.