Due to weather conditions and overwhelming laziness, the Friday Six has been replaced this week in favor of the Sunday Siesta Special.
 It’s actually hot here. I sort of thought maybe it never really got hot in Portland and despaired that my little sun dresses and sandals wouldn’t get any use and I’d never get that lacksadasical summer leisure feeling or  an excuse to take naps in the middle of the day. But it’s 99 right now, which is hot enough for me to definitely feel like I couldn’t possibly do something useful. Perfect.
It’s even warm in our apartment. Before today, even if it was on the warmish side elsewhere in Portland it would be chilly here. The cats took to burrowing under the covers. You’d find the bed looked maybe a bit lumpy or you wouldn’t notice anything at all until you dove onto it and little crushed cat meows came out from under the covers.
I don’t know why it’s colder in our apartment but my brain has put together the view of snowy Mt. St. Helens out the window and the fact that cool breezes come through that window to mean that the cold is actually coming directly from Mt. St. Helens. Granted, I know it’s a bit far away, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it is. On the other side of our apartment, Forest Park has some kind of natural and nice smelling air conditioning that wafts into our apartment as well. Today though, for the first time, it’s actually warm enough in here for a siesta. Yes!
In keeping with the too hot to be believed theme, I read Devilish yesterday by Maureen Johnson. Nothing like a little glimpse of hell on a hot summer day.Â
Now I must go back to my rigorous lounging schedule.
Posted in Films, Portland at 10:22 pm by Bridget Zinn
I have a thing for cake. I think this may come from my early years of cake deprivation (thanks dad), but there’s something so decadent and lovely about cake that it is the perfect celebratory thing to me. In fact, I’ve even written a picture book about cake because I love it so much.Â
We decided to get some We Made It To Portland and We’re Still Alive cake from the famous Papa Hadyn’s home of the ginormous cake case, but what I didn’t realize was that it not only does dessert, it does dinner and kind of schmancy dinner at that. So we schlumped in all sweaty from our hike there (we took the long way up the hill and back down for this view:)
wearing our Hanging Out on Sunday Hiking Up Mountains clothes. Everyone was there in their Out to a Fancy Dinner clothes so we tried to be unobtrusive and blend in by the cake case while we got our boxes to go.
I thought we had gone unnoticed, but no! On the way out, there was this preppy guy dressed in a lime green polo shirt (I know — lime green???). Barrett had already slipped out but the lime green polo shirt guy definitely noticed me. He looked right at me and I thought maybe he was going to complain about the riff raff they were letting in, but that wasn’t it at all… instead he gave me the Eye! Not the, wow, you look like you should be grabbing tacos from Pepino’s down the street (which we actually did — the dress is casual and the food is awesome!), but in a hey there, baby, kind of way. Seriously.
You may doubt that I know the Eye, which I can totally understand as I can be a bit dense about things and I’ve had issues spotting the Eye in the past. I may have even ended up on dates that I thought were friendly study sessions and had to quick run for the door when I finally realized what was going on. Actually, I had this happen so many times in one semester as an undergraduate that I spent my last day of class in the set shop avoiding eye contact with several other members of the class lest they get the wrong idea again. This made it difficult to ask anyone to pass me a hammer. But because of these unfortunate incidences my Eye Spotting Skills have increased greatly since then. Here’s a video of what the Eye looks like for proof. You need to imagine that I’m a pompous, preppy guy in a lime green polo shirt.
See! Apparently, when you are sweaty and underdressed there is no hiding from the Man, no matter how much you want to. At least it wasn’t to get the business about not being quite up to the standards of the establishment, but still… it was definitely not the under cover operation I was going for.
Despite the schmancy people and the polo shirt Eye Giver, the cake case was everything I dreamed it would be. Layers and layers of cake of all different kinds, many of them chocolate, some of them chocolate with a twist, all fluffy and creamy and wonderful.
The cake itself was to die for.Â
I hope you’re having a wonderful cake-filled week!
Bridget
p.s. Barrett took the photo of Mt. Hood at the top of our street and put the caption on it — doesn’t it look like a postcard?
1) Forest Park. I saw it on the map and thought it looked kind of cool before we moved here, but I had no idea how quickly you could feel like you were in the middle of the wilderness when you walked in. We were both blown away the first time. Here’s a pic. I’m not sure if you can get the feel of how amazing it is, but you’ll have to trust me. I grew up in the woods and know of what I speak. These are some fine woods.
2) Grocery stores. I love being able to walk and get my groceries for the day every day. And they’re super great stores too. One in particular, City Market, has almost all of the foods I love most in the world in it. It’s like they took a visit inside my head, found my favorite foods, and stocked the store accordingly. Racks of good chocolate, an olive bar with the most vibrant olives I’ve ever seen, fresh local fruit and veggies, a cheese counter with smarty pants staff, it has it all.Â
3) Bread. Super crusty bread. Yes! Here’s a sampling:
4) Roses. There are roses everywhere! Outside my window, along all the streets. I’ve never seen so many roses in my life.Â
5) Movie theatres. They are really into movie theatres here — fancy new ones, old fashioned ones, casual ones with great snacks, and every other kind you can think of. We’ve only been to one and I think it was digital or something, all I can tell you is that when the hulk was stomping around, I FELT it.
6) The ocean is SO close. We took a trip yesterday that we normally would have saved up for for ages what with the cost of a flight and a place to stay and everything. And yesterday we just went off to the beach on a whim and were home in time for dinner.
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Unfortunately, bookstores and the library, two of my favorite things in life, aren’t on the list yet. I have a library card, but nothing has come in for me yet, so I can’t comment. It’s only six blocks from our place though so there is definitely potential. And since I don’t have a job or an income at this point, I’ve been avoiding the bookstore temptation. Let’s hope the library is a fabulous one! Or I get an income soon. Both would be the best!
Posted in CCBC, Writing at 9:24 am by Bridget Zinn
I’m on the homepage of the CCBC website — a good ten percent of the time or so. Woo hoo! Today the CCBC homepage, tomorrow the cover of People. You have to hit refresh on the CCBC’s website to go through all of the pics. So I’m saving you some trouble by posting the image of my newfound fame here:
Doesn’t Judy look adorable as she’s seriously contemplating the book discussion book while the crazy girl next to her (me) is laughing hysterically? There are tons of other great pics of CCBC Librarians and CCBC Friends, so when you have time, you should check out the site. Just click on the image above and it will take you there. Merri helping Carin by giving her a copy of CCBC Choices is one of my favs.Â
Our first mattress we bought out here was horrible. I was so sore, I’d wake up and walk around half bent over for the first part of the day and would have been crippled within months. So we decided to exchange, but this time we were going to get the PERFECT mattress. No more early morning old man walking! No more fallen asIeep legs from lack of circulation! No more charley horses! I made Barrett take pictures of me lying on the beds in a sleeping position so that I could see if my spine was straight. Originally, I asked him to check out my spine himself, but he kept saying, “Um, I think your spine looks straight, I don’t really know, yeah it looks good. Maybe. Except your spine does look a little bit like a ‘U’. Or a straight line. One of the two.” Which wasn’t helpful at all. So I had him take digital pics of me laying on each bed so I could see for myself. V. important to get the right mattress this time and avoid crippling.
Imagine my surprise when he handed over the camera and not only were there nearly pornographic pictures on it, they were the ones he’d just taken!!! First of all, I have to say that I checked to make sure that my shirt went to my jean line before we left the house — I swear on Tim Gunn that I checked. But apparently what worked standing up, did not work lying down on my side and I was practically flashing all of Ikea with the gap between shirt and low rise jean.
Thank god that mid-rise pants are back. I’ve got two pairs, but they’re still too new and shiny to wear running errands. I guess I’ll just avoid lying down in public in my old low-rises in the future and wait for my new shiny mid-rise pairs to get old and grungy.
I’m posting the pic here censored for decency for you to get the idea.
The new mattress, however, is GREAT! It was definitely worth the effort. And public nudity.
1) Forest Park. I saw it on the map and thought it looked kind of cool before we moved here, but I had no idea how quickly you could feel like you were in the middle of the wilderness when you walked in. We were both blown away the first time. Here’s a pic. I’m not sure if you can get the feel of how amazing it is, but you’ll have to trust me. I 
These are some fine woods.
