Oh Dog, you Sleuth!

I tried to drop my film off at the grocery store tonight for quickie one-hour processing because I just had a roll of regular Kodak 400 speed and didn’t see what difference it made. But their machine was busted, which really infuriated me because Jeremy and I did one of those grocery store shopping trips where you’re there for an hour because you keep thinking of random things you want to make and have to go up and down the same aisles over again to find the ingredients. Then I went to Walgreens, a store I hate even more than Walmart, but their machine was busted too. It’s like a conspiracy to make me go downtown, which I was feeling too lazy to do for the last couple of days. And then with the falling back one hour thing, I was ready to forget about the whole thing. At least I had a very decent dinner in the main dining room of the Pagoda tonight.
Halloween totally came and went for me this year. It’s been a pretty emotionally berserk week and I found myself at a party on Saturday night, but just hung out on the porch for about half an hour and then split. Jeremy and I were the only two people not in costumes and we felt kind of weird. We came home with Donna and watched Lake Placid, which was amazing. How did I miss this Ben Hecht-style screwball horror film when it came out? And how did Betty White not get an Oscar nod for her foul-mouthed performance?
I spent the whole day today trying to buy things for the house and really finding nothing. We drove all over the city and at one point ended up at the dreaded Mall 205, on the edge of town. It’s not really a mall, just a big Home Despot and Target bookending a corridor containing a few measly stores and a morbid food court. But I saw something there today that really disturbed me. The few other times I’ve been there, the place has been completely quiet in perfect dead mall fashion, but today the place was full of kids in Halloween costumes with their parents and they were trick or treating in the mall!!! At first we thought they were just there with their shopping parents (which I guess they were), but every store had somebody out front with bowls of candy and the kids all had their bags and plastic jack o lanterns. What the hell?!? When did this custom start? And what does this mean? Do people not trust their neighbors to give candy to their kids, but trust Bed Bath and Beyond and Footlocker more? Back in the city, I saw kids going door to door and was glad I voted to protect the Green Belt, which keeps the big-box places away.
Oh, and somebody left me a carved pumpkin on my porch with my name on it. I assumed it was from Stephen, who’s carving party I missed the other night, but he kept denying it. I’ve decided to assume it was from him, though I started to like the idea of having a sexy stalker. Tonight there was a gift basket on the porch, which made me think SS struck again, but it was from my mortgage broker.

My mom sent me this picture. Usually, I hate vinyl signs, but this time…

Found at the thrift store down the street.

It’s Friday pot-luck!

The super-food of Portland. I don’t know how this town supports so much of this stuff. It’s all about Du’s on Sandy, for those in the know.

I’m not sure who was the victim of this disapproving look. Probably Jenny.

I know I’ve done Pagoda to death, but not with my super slow speed Agfa film.

Here’s the good luck charm April brought to bingo last week. Sadly, the zombie-shell-art-in-straw-hat didn’t bring any of us luck. But one of the prizes was a Mike’s Hard Lemonade t-shirt, so who needs that kind of luck.

I sunk to the level of Seven Dollars A Whack one time and regretted it. I had to slink back to my real barber for a fix up.

So the NC BBQ turned out shockingly well. Jeez, I’m starting to think Elizabeth is the ‘Hints From Heloise’ of our generation. Thanks for all the telegrams and considerate phone calls, everybody. I crockpotted a shoulder of pork for about 15 hours and it just shredded amazingly. The slaw wasn’t bad either, but I guess it’ll really be good tomorrow.

More of the neighborhood under the microscope.

So a lot of good new music hit the stores this week. If anybody out there wants to pass along the new Ted Leo Shake The Sheets or Le Tigre’s This Island, I can trade the new Elliott Smith, which I got hooked up with a month ago and have been listening to it everyday.

Elizabeth gave me the idea to take on pulled pork today in the crockpot. I’ve been letting it cook forever. I’m super nervous cause I’ve seen Jeremy get into too many arguments at places that purport to serve up North Carolina-style BBQ. I’m gonna have to hit up Kathy for some Texas Pete for my slaw. I thought about doing Brunswick stew and cornbread, but I needed another crockpot and an iron skillet. Ugh.

More of the neighborhood, right when the sun was going down last Wednesday.

Would somebody please get me one of these?

So the corn maze was pretty fun and actually kind of hard. It’s probably scarier to go at night, but more interesting during the day, because you can stand on platforms and see the actual shape of the maze, which is shown above.
I was thinking about going to one of the haunted houses, but it’s pretty $$$. If anyone wants to go, review these options and tell me which one you think sounds the best. I’m leaning towards 13th Door right now, but I’ve never been to any of these.

Here’s the house!

Last Sunday we checked out Montage with Leslie, which was this total date restaurant with flattering lighting and slow service (so you can talk to your date, I guess). And we were all like, ‘Bring out the food! We hungry!’ And it was okay, but I’d go back for the aluminum foil-wrapped leftovers you get there.

Jeremy and I usually never leave anything behind (I’m sure Leslie does, since she’s probably 55 lbs), but we all made this big deal to leave leftovers so we could get the tin foil treatment. Everybody else at this place seemed to be in on this as well, because the whole time we were ooh-ing and ahhh-ing over the various sculptures. And who makes these? Is there one dedicated guy in the kitchen and this is his whole job? Are the sculptures different on different nights? Or is there a house style?

This kid got one of the best foil treatments I saw: Superman. And I saw somebody else with a helicopter. We got the three lamest things: a crab, a snail and a scorpion.
The worst part was I got somebody else’s leftovers. The second I got home I opened up what was supposed to be jambalaya and it was pasta. So I called up Leslie and told her I got her food and she checked her foil and was like, ‘No I got mine.’ And then I got super grossed out because I’d already eaten half of some sneezy stranger’s food. So I ate it anyway. This was a week ago and I guess I’ll live.
Tonight some psycho lesbian started screaming at Jeremy in a Thai restaurant about how he’d ruined her life, but I’ll talk about that when the film comes back from the lab…

Here’s the new neighborhood. We live in Buckman, which right when I got here, I decided was my favorite neighborhood in Portland. This part of town sorta reminds me of the Lower Garden District or Mid City New Orleans, but is also pretty distinctly north western, with all its fir trees and big Craftsmen houses. It also strangely reminds me of Mercer Mayer’s ‘One Monster After Another’. Has anyone read that and knows what I’m talking about? I’m not talking about the story, just the illustrations.

I took a bunch of pictures in here (Grand Central Bowl), but they didn’t come out. It was totally 50s inside with old checkboard floors and these amazing consoles for the bowling scores. I’d never seen anything like it and I’ve been in million bowling alleys.

This house is directly across the street from mine. What’s up with that? Ironically, there’s a super left-wing coffee shop right next to this place and when I was in there I asked if there some kind war going on. The woman that worked/owned the place said there wasn’t. And that the people that lived in the crumbling house were surprisingly nice, though she also described the residents as ‘Norman Bates and his mother’.

This is a more honest depiction of what the neighborhood/whole city looks like. It totally tricked me the first time I saw it and I thought it was some kind of driving command.

Bobby sent me this link which blew my mind this week. Go to this and scroll down to ‘From Bar to Bedding’. The first picture represents everything I wanted NYC to be (all Serpico-ed out) and I ended up with Sleepys (’for the rest of your life…’).

It’s strange to go into a store where only one person works and seems to have influenced how every detail looks. But that’s the what the frame shop on 39th is like. I walked past this place about a million times because it was right by my old house, though I never went in because I sworn off frame stores in general after getting into a fight at a place in Brooklyn. Stephen convinced me this place was different and he was right because the woman who runs the place, April, is kind of a genius and I’m completely fascinated with her:

My favorite is the picture of the librarian woman staring pensively. I should also mention, the first time I went in there, she was wearing a Kenny Rogers iron-on t-shirt.
Oh, and she framed my Marlys print and Topps sticker poster brilliantly. Jeremy won all these Sparks posters on eBay and there’s been a lot of head scratching about what to do with them. I got him to make April a Sparks mix CD so she can be super inspired.
Learning how to make frames was one of the life goals that doesn’t seem like it’s about to be fulfilled anytime soon, which is sad, because I really want to make a Barry McGee style art installation.

My big plans about checking out Open House NY this year kind of came and went. Sigh. But check out those who did.

Baby not for sale, via EB.