Yellow journalism

Gauging from the news yesterday, Portland should be in the throes of an ice storm never seen since the last ice age. All throughout the night last night, there were rolling text updates on all the tv shows we were watching, telling us that THE STORM IS COMING! My work was making preparations for a late opening or possibly not opening at all. Tons of schools preemptively closed. Well, imagine my surprise when we woke up not to a sheet of ice coating everything and shutting down the entire city, but... wait for it... NOTHING! There was hardly any rain, just enough for the ground to be wet, and the temperature is well above freezing. I guess information like that doesn't garner many ratings. Actually, I'm a little disappointed... I could have used a day home refilling my sleep bank.

Freezing inside and out

Portland is experiencing abnormally cold temperatures... like 30º! I guess my blood has thinned considerably since enduring Utah and Norwegian winters... To avoid being frozen solid I took the bus all the way into the city where I could transfer to the train (I usually walk a couple of blocks to a different train stop, but I wasn't willing to risk frost bite for a few minutes' savings). I'm sure that drinking 48 oz. of Diet Coke this morning at Noah's had NOTHING to do with my feeling so cold.

Speaking of massive amounts of pop, a couple of weeks ago when we were coming back from the hot springs resort, we stopped at 7-11 for caffeine (a strictly prohibited substance at the resort... you'd think it was run by Mormons if it weren't for all the naked people running around). Anyway, the refill prices for different container sizes was posted at the fountain dispenser. It listed the standard 16 oz, 32 oz, and 64 oz, but it also listed prices for 96 oz, 1 gallon, and FIVE FRICKIN' GALLONS! (which, by the way, only cost $6.25) Who in the world would come in with a 5-gallon bucket and fill it with pop?!? By the time the thing was filled it would have gone flat. Although you have to admit it would be funny to take a bucket of pop to the movies and set it down in front of you with an extra long straw and slowly consume enough caffeine to turn a sloth into a cheetah. All you'd need then would be a 55-gallon barrel of popcorn. And a catheter, of course.

Priorities

Here I was, with a great blog entry all mapped out in my head, when an item in today's paper jumped out at me and forced me to write about it. I'll have to tell you about my Tibetan expedition that was so strenuous that I required 12 sherpas another time. What has gotten me so aggravated? I'm glad you asked. Check this out:

The president-elect of the Christian Coalition of America, which has long served as a model for activism for the religious right, has stepped down, saying the group had resisted his efforts to broaden its agenda to include reducing poverty and fighting global warming.

Over the past few years, Rev. Joel C. Hunter has gained a reputation as an evangelical leader who sought to expand the agenda of conservative Christian activists from issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage.

Because nothing says Christ-like like firing someone who is trying to help the poor and be a good steward of the environment. I bet the millions of Americans in poverty are so thankful that those conservative Christians are using their resources to keep gays from getting married rather than wasting it on something like FOOD!

One last point before I get off my soap box... and of course it has to do with a comparison between the U.S. and Norway. What is up with Norway, whose population's religious conviction compels them to at most go to church at Easter and Christmas--and that's the RELIGIOUS ones, that have done away with hunger, poverty, and homelessness in their country, while here in the U.S., where the majority of the population ranks themselves as religious, we allow people to go hungry, live in poverty, and have rampant homelessness? I wish we could start living up to our ideals. (Unfortunately it seems that money always wins out when there is a conflict between charity and capitalism.)

(Okay, I'm stepping down off my soap box now.)

Thanksgiving follow-up

I forgot to write about our food experience in the Spokane airport. When we were on our way to the airport, my brother asked if we wanted to stop for some food before the flight. Thinking that the Spokane airport would be like the Portland airport and have an entire food court with prices that were dictated by city code to be identical to downtown prices, we told him we'd just grab something while we were waiting for our flight. Well, when we got there, only a single restaurant was open... and they only had pre-made sandwiches, soup, and chips. We decided to share a sandwich, Margaret got a cup of soup, I got a bag of chips, and we both got a Diet Coke. All that came to $18! The dry sandwich alone was $7 and the Diet Coke was $2.50... EACH! (Of course we'd opened them before finding THAT out! After paying, I remembered my mom had brought up a whole bag full of leftover turkey sandwiches. Why hadn't I remembered them before being gouged? For the love of God, WHY?

Thanksgiving travels

Margaret and I went home to Idaho for Thanksgiving. The trip started with the ordeal of Homeland Security-imposed inconvenience that is modern air travel. What's up with the 3 oz. liquid or gel rule? That alone was aggravating, as you had to have all your liquids and gels in a separate ziploc bag. I swear! How far are we from packing EVERYTHING in our checked luggage, stripping naked for a body cavity search, then be issued paper hospital gowns for the duration of the flight? Anyway, another rule was no wrapped packages. Well, we were bringing over all our Christmas presents for my family and so ended up having to wrap them while we were in Idaho. Of course we put it off until the morning we left, so Margaret and I ended up at Jo-Ann fabrics to get wrapping paper (she totally tricked me, telling me that she was going to the Albertson's next door!). The place was busy... their doorbuster sale had attracted a horde intent on getting damask at 1/2 off. Compliments of the ravaging horde, all the registers were open. We tried playing the "switch lines to get into the faster moving one" game and got stuck behind someone writing a check... yes, A CHECK! Those have been banned in Portland for years now, so it was quaint to see someone getting her quill pen and ink pot out to write out a check. Well, of course there was a computer problem processing it, so we waited and waited and WAITED. The person behind us in the original line had already gone through the line and was out the door before our clerk announced that her register was closing and to go to the other line! Arg. We switched lines, like obedient sheep, and waited some more. Just when we were next in line, the other register clerk came back and reopened her line! Ah, love those experiences at fabric stores that reinforce my dread of going to them.

We got back to Portland okay... the only thing that Homeland Security confiscated was a gross energy drink sample we'd gotten at Costco. It was 3.4 oz, which everyone knows would have been enough to do some real damage. Brother!

God Save the Queen!

Wow! Last night, we went to see Casino Royale, the new James Bond movie and all I have to say is that I haven't been this proud to be English since the signing of the Magna Carta!

Black market's underwater branch

Check out this from CNN:

Tipped off by three plastic pipes mysteriously skimming the ocean's surface, authorities seized a homemade submarine packed with 3 tons of cocaine off Costa Rica's Pacific coast.

Four men traveled inside the 50-foot wood and fiberglass craft, breathing through the pipes. The craft sailed along at about 7 mph, just 6 feet beneath the surface, Security Minister Fernando Berrocal said Sunday.

THREE TONS!!! That's almost a four-day supply for the NBA!

You can read the whole article here.

Hippie weekend

This weekend, we went to a hippie commune hot springs retreat and intentional community. It's out in the middle of nowhere in the Oregon forest. The group that operates it are all new-agey or extreme hippies. They generate their own electricity, recycle everything, and offer random yoga, meditation, and reiki workshops, just to name a few. The best indicator of how new-agey the place was happened when we were checking in. When the woman at the front desk saw my last name and that it was obviously Native American, she asked me where my tribe was from (actually, she first asked me if that was the name I was born with--evidently being used to people like Jane Smith or Michael Jones get all granola and legally change their name to Moonshadow or Running Fox). Anyway, when I told her that I was from Idaho, she told that her daughter was conceived in Idaho and she always felt like it was an ancient tribal spirit from there that had entered her, as her daughter had a great affinity to that location. Trying not to crack a smile, I just nodded my head and slowly backed away. (Although now that I think about it, I wonder if I was conceived in a Gap dressing room, because I've always had an affinity to that store...)

Anyway, back to the hot springs. For us, the big draw is the hot water pools scattered throughout the property--ranging from a natural steam sauna to a series of successively hotter pools arranged in a circle. Nothing says decadence like sitting in a hot pool all day, only to come out for meals. Unfortunately they only offer vegetarian meals, so we had to stop by McDonald's after we's put our clothes back on and left the commune facility (and rest assured, it was in that order).

MasterCard's advertising reach

I know I was a bad snoop who had no business doing this, but... Yesterday on the bus, the woman sitting next to me started writing a text message on her phone. What first caught my eye was how slowly she was typing on her phone--you'd think she'd grown up with a rotary dial--even though I'm sure she was younger than me. Anyway, since I was looking over her shoulder anyway, I started reading the message she was writing. The message was: "Emma's husband: 54; Emma: 28; Emma's husband's daughter: 32; Thanksgiving all together: priceless" AWKWARD! Ah, I love the things one sees on public transportation... that and invading people's privacy.

Fire eating

Last night the Portland Gang© met at a fancy restaurant to celebrate Firechild's birthday. And boy was that restaurant fancy--it seemed like a classic gentleman's club from the robber baron era. (A feeling that was assisted by the fact that the restaurant was in the train station.) The red velvet seats were high backed and someone pointed out that when you laugh, you felt like doing it maniacally and so heartily that your monocle fell out, because it just felt right. It seemed like just the place to plot how to economically exploit the next group of hapless victims. Let's see, who's left? The Irish, Blacks, Native Americans, Chinese, Mormons, Germans, Hispanics, Poles, Japanese, Aborigines, Lapps, Puritans, Basques, Palestinians, and Indians have already been exploited. That only leaves Midwesterners and Skateboarders.

Anyway, back to the restaurant--I always knew that Firechild was a pyromaniac, but after seeing what she ordered, I think she both earned her nickname AND reached a new level of pyromania. One of the offerings on the menu was Steak Diane, which is steak prepared at the table and served flambé. I swear--given the choice between Ambrosia prepared by Aphrodite herself atop Mt. Olympus and delivered to the restaurant by Hermes and food on fire, she'd choose the fire food every time (and not just because Aphrodite ususally charges several hundred thousand dollars per serving). You should have seen Firechild's eyes light up when her meat burst into flames. Satan himself couldn't have been more pleased around all that fire. For dessert, she ordered Bananas Foster, served flambé, of course. If they would have offered a flaming salad, I'm thinking she would have been tempted by it. Maybe for her birthday I should have given her a charcoal briquette and told her that it was an iPod, served flambé.