It Started with a Journal

I haven't gotten my GIF assignment for the week, though I am looking much more forward to this one than I was the last one, but there were a few moments I wanted to GIF, for myself. I wanted to share them with y'all!

( Gratuitous gifs from the Broncos @ Seahawks game. )

And if you don't care about football, but like food, I have recent photos to share!

( Like, sushi and stuff. )

It's only been a week since Portland, but I already miss it. I mean, yes, it's partly because I hate being at work, but I also really liked Portland itself, which was basically Seattle lite. :)) Here are some of the things I enjoyed most:

- The public transportation. So excellent. You could get anywhere you wanted to go using their light rail, streetcar, and buses. You wouldn't need a car if you lived there. It reminds me of when I lived in D.C., except then I only took the Metro, no buses. Oh if only Seattle had great public transportation! It'd be so awesome to be able to hop onto a light rail and get to work. Unfortunately I think we're too spread out. Not as bad as LA, but bad enough.

- Salt & Straw. I believe we went to all three locations. SO good. We have something similar here in Molly Moon, but I've never tasted anything as good as that sea salt caramel ice cream from Salt & Straw. I think about it at least once a day.

- Dragontree spa. My massage therapist was Brandon, who did my sugar scrub, Swedish massage, and scalp massage. He was so nice and awesome. It seems unlikely because therapists seem to move around a lot, but maybe next time I'm there I can get him again! Also there was Anders, who had a Dark Mark inked on his forearm. Which is kind of awesome. I wish I'd noticed it when he was giving me a foot massage, except I wasn't doing much thinking or observing during that time. Foot massages are the BOMB. Dragontree actually has a lot of male therapists, which I thought was surprising but cool. Surprising because many women, who make up the usual spa clientele, don't feel comfortable with male therapists. Other than the initial awkwardness, I prefer them. They tend to have a natural strength that doesn't come as easily to female therapists, and I really despise being petted. (That said, I had a massage yesterday with a new therapist at the place I normally go to, and she was great.)

- Pok Pok's chicken wings. We had a ton of good food in Portland, which you probably know if you've checked out adelagia's travel journal of our trip, but those wings are life changing. They are SO incredible that they completely overshadowed the rest of our meal. I bought the Pok Pok cookbook recently, and the recipe for the wings is included. It seems like a huge pain to try and duplicate at home, but I think I have to attempt it at least once. The other two dishes that stand out in my mind as being particularly spectacular were the grilled squid from Tasty N Alder (sister restaurant to Toro Bravo, which has a cookbook as well, but no recipe for the squid), and the pancetta-wrapped trout from Veritable Quandary.

- The fact that there's no sales tax!! Our bills at restaurants always so neatly ended in .00. I could not think of anything I wanted to buy while I was there, and of COURSE when I got back to Seattle thought of like a million things. ><

I did order a couple of camera lenses that were delivered to the hotel: Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G AF-S ED VR II Nikkor Telephoto Zoom and Nikon 50mm f/1.8G AF-S NIKKOR FX.