Portland, Oregon

For Thanksgiving, T and I took a trip to Portland. T's dad and his wife just moved there. An ever-growing number of friends from many walks of life have also moved there. It seems that all roads are leading to Portland.

We had Thanksgiving with the family.

Then we visited our friends John and Anna in their cool house.

We hung out with Brendt, Nina, Dennis and Julian.


T, Wendy, Clay and I viewed the ghostly paintings at the Kennedy School.
Mick and I have been playing Scrabble for almost twenty years now. He won this time.



While I was there, I had the distinct sensation that I had to move there, whether I wanted to or not, because everything was just so danged perfect. Here is a brief and in no way complete list of perfect things I encountered there.

1. Incredibly short lines in the airport, during a usually-insane holiday time.
2. Unbearably delicious meals in adorable surroundings at Lovely Hula Hands, Mother's, and The Screen Door. If you ever go to Lovely Hula Hands, be sure to try a cocktail called Talulah's Bathwater.
   
3. Evidence everywhere of superb urban planning and environmental awareness, with all kinds of amazing parking, bicycling and traffic calming innovations.
4. Attractive, affordable houses everywhere.

However, the fact that most buildings were one, and at most, two stories high kind of bugged me, urbanite that I am. I remember someone (I think it may have been my friend Allan) saying disparagingly of Portland: "It's nothing but a bunch of houses." Well, kind of, yeah, but a bunch of houses doesn't look too bad to a real-estate starved Bay Area resident like me.