If you want to know why I own a mix CD entitled "The Jack McFairyland Collection":
it's because of Katy
If you want to know why I never doubt that there is goodness and love in the world:
you get the picture
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Happy birthday, Katy Assner!
You've influenced my life in so many ways... Here's to the next fifteen years!
((Because let's take a minute to think about the fact that we were twelve when we met and how scary is that and oh my gosh we need to hurry up and be in Napa at the same time so we can go to Oxbow Market and eat things covered in cheese because we have built our friendship on a mighty foundation of cheese and Jewish humor... Wheeee!))
Post title is deceptive because it only takes a little over an hour to get to the bay area by plane from Portland but that's not how the song goes.
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By the time you read this, I will be halfway to California.
Or already there. Yes, there's a chance I'm there (here?) as we speak. As you read.
Whatever, I wrote this post in a small state of delirium while watching an old episode of The Office and wishing it was the original Arthur because I really love me some Dudley Moore. Good lord, but I digress... Among the other things I accomplished this past week (things which include, but are not limited to: eating an entire bag of Haribo gummy candies in one day, doing laundry, barrel tasting at Alexana, and not properly making my bed even once), I decided to read through some of the archives of Nat The Fat Rat. Though she lives in NYC now, she used to be a Portland girl and I get a sincere kick when she writes about my corner of the country. In one post about her traveling back out here (there?) she pinpointed one of the things I love most about this place: "I am in Portland, and if I were to do a spot-on impersonation of Portland, it would go like this:
And not to say I will ever fully tire of this, but it does make me excited to be going to California and up my dosage of natural vitamin D.
Only problem there is that it presents me with the dilemma all indecisive packrats face when traveling:
what to bring.
Which is why in the same post I'm pretty sure I found my packing soulmate in Natalie Holbrook:
"I will pack this . . . I will pack that . . . I will pack every stripey shirt I own because . . . wellllll . . . (cue my luggage being too stuffed for anything else) . . . oh bother."
On that note, I'm really happy to report that most of the weight/space in my luggage is due to wine.
thank you reasonably stacked heels for not destroying my feet after nine hour work days
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With a glass of wine in one hand and a glowing keyboard under the other (nope, nevermind, I put it down, almost spilled trying to type/sip at the same time, not that coordinated, moving on...) I find myself running over and over the list of things I need to do before Jared's old truck rattles into the driveway at 5:30 tomorrow morning to take me to PDX.
You'd think with a reasonable amount of domestic and international traveling under my belt I'd have learned by now that even a solid 24 hour headstart on semi-vital things like packing might be a good idea.
And yet here we are, eight hours out and the most I've accomplished on that list was "eat dinner" and "make CDs" (for the drive from San Francisco to Monterey, though I'm guessing Jenn and I won't be paying too much attention to the radio unless we decide a Luke Bryan sing-along is in order - which, ok, honestly, that's going to happen, who are we kidding here?).
At least all my laundry is done so I have clean clothes for the week. Worst case scenario I'll just throw it all in a Hefty bag and hope for the best.
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1. Thank you weird Scandinavian "Berry Cassis" gummy candies! World Market has become my new supplier of chewy, fruity treats and now that I've discovered these little buggers (purple package, Katjes brand, creepy picture of a woman eating black currants with the caption "My juicy pleasure!" on the bag... Not at all inappropriate) I have a hard time not eating the whole bag. The taste of black currants is deeply comforting (and deeply delicious) and always reminds me of living in England wheremy beloved Ribena juice is found. Favorite flavor anything. Why isn't America as on board with currants as the rest of the world?
2. Thank you cold sunshine! I mean, if it's going to be 25 degrees outside, it may as well be pure blue skies and sunshine. And when everything is covered in frost? It looks like the whole world is glittering. It's like living in a scene from Labyrinth but without David Bowie.
3. Thank you for California (I know, weird)! For the first time in a long time I'm really excited to be going home. Well, not home really anymore... My home is here in Portland - this is the place I miss, the place my heart aches for after more than a couple days - but my hometown is a place I'm finally becoming thankful for. And trust me, it's taken a while to get to that point. So to be able to be this happy about spending time there is a neat, neat thing.
So my self-imposed Target ban that I put into effect a week ago is about to be broken.
You see, I knocked over my lamp the other night. Totally broke it. I mean, it was metal so I didn't shatter it or anything (and the bulb was remarkably in tact - woo!) but definitely busted the whole illumination mechanism. It was basically just glorified shrapnel when I finished with it.
Not that I hold any serious attachment to said lighting unit (it was a hand-me-down from my uncle and was much appreciated, but not always "my style").
My bedside lamp on the other hand, George as he's known around these parts, still speaks to my soul.
I bought him in college when I lived in my first apartment and he has been by my side ever since. It's a love affair with George and me, it is.
All this to say I am off to Target now to find a new lamp that's sure to dazzle.
my theory: any day you can see mt. hood is a good day
So no, their names aren't really Franklin and Matthias.
But it sounds good, don't it?
Anyway, I'm going to let the pictures do the talking here. This was such a happy day.
Regardless of where anyone stands (and I am completely respectful of people's beliefs so long as they are respectful of mine and keep hatred and bigotry out of it), the fact that these two amazing people are now legally married fills me to the brim with joy!
To witness a little piece of history being made where marriage is recognized legally so that they have all the same rights of any other devoted couple was amazing.
When I love my friends, I love them wholly and completely. Not because of differences, not in spite of them, but regardless. And these guys? I love them so much!
Live a life of love without judgement.
Congratulations Matty & Frankie!
We all love you so much!
Thank you for letting me be a part of this special day!
witnesses taking their places alongside the grooms
HUSBANDS!
ya'll are so cute.
80's freeze-frame high five ending
making it official!
fun story: robin and frankie had their eyes closed, so they got cropped out... dean however looked relatively normal... the world is ending
faaaaantastic
The Wedding Party! Or, Lairen Learns How To Use The Self-Timer
taking gross advantage of being left alone in the courtroom
the honorable judge matty hernandez presiding
dinner afterward at The Blue Olive (( amazing cocktails for people in the portland area! ))
So far 2013 is doing a great job of being a year for love!
(this has only as much to do with this post as it mentions "ice")
I now present to you a written reenactment of my Tuesday morning:
Imagine, if you will, a young woman leaving for work. She bundles up appropriately for the 30-some-odd degree weather that awaits her. She wears, however, only simple leather flats. Her reasoning is that she will be indoors all day with an overzealous heater so, hey, why not?
This young woman gathers her things, all the things she assumes she will need throughout the day and heads out the door. Her porch, though there was reasonable condensation overnight, is not too icy. A little frost, a slick patch here and there. "How lovely!" she thinks to herself! So she continues confidently along.
Upon stepping up onto the staircase leading down from her apartment however, disaster! That one step, though successful and leaving her upright, illuminates her mind to the terrifying realization that there is in fact 1/4" of ice on each step. Shellacked on there, completely burying even the rough strips of traction-inducing roofing material.
Problem.
You see, there are exactly 17 steps leading down that staircase in question and each step is decidedly narrower than your average step. And steeper.
These are, for lack of a better term, suicide stairs.
And your friendly heroine here is not exactly known for her grace in movement. Falling down is one of her greatest talents.
All of this screams through her mind as she stands helplessly on a very slippery, very frozen step.
"HOW AM I GOING TO GET DOWN FROM HERE?" she wonders.
Luckily, she is quite adept at lowering her center of gravity so with a careful squat, she slinks off the stairs and hurries back to her apartment.
She is trapped.
She texts an Indianian (who is much more familiar with ice such as this) and he gives her two options:
"Hold onto the railing" (which will not work, she tells him, as the railing too is encased in ice)
or
"Slide down on your butt"
Our girl chooses the latter (after trying to think of any other possibility including testing a theory of boiling enough water to melt the ice all the way down - upon the first trial step with a mugful of water, she decides, nope, not a good idea, this will end badly).
So with a hurried change out of her work clothes, she throws on a pair of yoga pants and duck boots and does what she does best (and probably should have thought of in the first place but leave it to this Indianian to remind her of the "get down the slippery surface" technique - that is, a modified crab walk - she exhibited on their first date four and a half years ago which undoubtedly won his heart immediately and reminds him even now why they are still friends)...
Friends, prepare your imaginations for this:
The girl braces herself for the cold. She understands the repercussions of sitting on ice with very thin pants. She knows what she has to do.
And she does it. One step at a time. Scooting down, on her butt, like a baby learning to navigate a staircase.
Sit on step. Move legs as far as they safely reach. Brace self with hands. Move down steps.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Seventeen steps later, she finds herself not only with a numb backside, but on solid, ice-free ground.
Considering it a win for the day (nay, the week!) she trots off to her car, turns the heat up all the way and wishes for a brief moments to be back in her old car with the heated seats. Just this once.
Because seriously, her bottom has never been so effing cold in her entire life.
thank you thrifted ll bean boots for traction on my icy porch ((photo from instagram @laurenjeanallece))
For anyone who follows me on Pinterest, I'd like to take this moment to officially apologize for taking over your feed last night.
A while back, I found myself with a newly devised yet entirely unintentional system: like now, pin later. It was going swimmingly until I realized my "likes" were getting out of control (let's take a moment here to really think hard about these and other first-world problems, shall we?). Anyway, last night in a bout of apparent and transient insomnia I hopped to it... And I think I pinned about a hundred things in the span of two hours (including plenty of stuff to private boards - anyone else out there love that feature as much as me?).
Anyway, now that we've got that cleared up, onward with things of some actual substance...
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1. Thank you for Frankie & Matty getting married Friday night! Pictures to come soon, but let me just say for now what a wonderful, perfect day it was. Starting with the enormous and delicious brunch they cooked up for us that morning (goodnessgracious, they need to open a B & B), followed by a seriously entertaining car ride up to Vancouver with Jared behind the wheel (alternating between standstill traffic and him peeling around cars to get into the carpool lane, followed by him shouting "Carpool violator!" every time he saw someone riding alone in said lane), which ended in a fantastic meal at Blue Olive downtown (oh hey, amazing house cocktails for $7.50, how you doin'?) and Jared pushing Dean over the edge.
2. Thank for this delicious crisp, cold weather. And this:
3. Thank you for time to read! So this time of year is not exactly prime wine tasting season, I get it. It's cold, the roads are icy, maybe it's not the best time to be drinking wine. Totally fine by me because it gives me the chance to read at work (because there is only so much dusting, wine-rotating and cheese-eating you can do in a day). I read Forgotten God last Monday when - I kid you not - not a bloody soul came in all day until fifteen minutes before we close. Yeah, 4:45pm... I see headlights in the driveway. I nearly croaked. But whatever, they were super nice people and it was a good note to end the day on. So win-win. Also, you should read Francis Chan. He's amazing and I miss the days of hearing him speak in person very much.
4. Thank you for this:
These kids are incredible and this song makes me cry. There. I said it. I cry when I'm sad, sure, but when I'm pushed to joy? Good Lord. Literally. I'm a mess.
5. Thank you for my upcoming trip to California! I'll be back in the homeland in one week and I've not been this excited to go to California in a long time. It's a good feeling.
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For my closing statement, go see Django Unchained. Jared and I went to see it last week and I'm pretty sure neither of us has been able to stop talking about it since. Or listening to John Legend.
this play, which is a work of fiction but based entirely on real-life events, has had some details altered and/or condensed for the sake of the theatre and is not an exact transcript, though it is as close to historically accurate as needed for dramatic effect
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act I
(Early afternoon, in the car; Frank Turner plays)
JARED
Is this Bob Seger?
DEAN
I hate you.
act II
(Late afternoon, again in the car; Gaslight Anthem plays)
JARED
This is my favorite Bob Seger song.
DEAN
I'm going to murder you.
act III
(Early evening, back in the car; Chuck Ragan plays)
JARED
Oh sweet, Bob Seger's got a new song!
DEAN
I can't handle this.
act IV
(Later that night, at a bar; Tupac plays)
JARED
This was one of Bob Seger's best.
DEAN
No one thinks you're funny anymore!
act V
(Just after midnight, still at the bar; The Ramones play)
DEAN
I bet you're gonna ask what Bob Seger album this is off of now?
Though they've already been married for a couple years (and together for almost 10!) today we are all headed up to a courthouse in Vancouver, Washington where they will finally be legally married!
It's pretty exciting.
These two have been through hell and back, and there are few people who represent what this kind of commitment means better. Their love runs deep and they are two of the dearest friends I've ever known.
And there is a good chance I ate the majority of them.
Sorry I'm not sorry.
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Black Pepper Chocolate Rosemary Cookies
(( makes about a dozen cookies ))
Ingredients:
2 cups dark chocolate chips
3 tablespoons butter, room temp
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary
a few grinds of fresh black pepper
Directions:
1. Melt chips and butter in a heavy-bottomed pan over low heat. Stir until smooth and thick.
2. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, sugar and salt slightly thickened. Add rosemary and vanilla. Mix well.
3. Combine chocolate mixture with egg mixture.
4. Add flour and baking powder until just mixed. Cover dough and chill for 15-30 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 F in the meantime.
5. Form dough into ping-pong ball sized balls and flatten slightly. Place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment or unlined and lightly greased, leaving 1-2 inches between each cookie. Bake for 10 minutes. Check and if still too soft to hold together, bake for another 1-2 minutes (be careful not to overcook as these are meant to be gooey in the center!).
6. Top with powdered sugar.
7. Serve warm and enjoy!
(( it bears mention to inform you that these are equally delicious with a glass of milk, a cup of coffee, or - personal favorite - a glass of red wine ))
A lot has been rolling through my head so far this year.
And since we're being candid here, that ball started rolling long before 2013 flipped onto the calendar. And even before I read Elise's post on One Little Word (and subsequently read about the concept here).
The project is defined like this:
"Essentially the idea is to choose a word (or let it choose you) that has the potential to make an impact on your life."
_
"Or let it choose you."
What an amazing and humbling way to think about this. And oddly enough, that's exactly what happened.
Love chose me long before this project came to me. When so much of my world fell apart almost two years ago, love was the last thing I expected to hold on to. But no matter what happened, I couldn't shake it. Love had a firm hold on me and wasn't about to loosen its grip.
And I am so thankful it didn't.
Because love came to define the way I wanted to live my life. It lit me up inside and filled me to the brim, to the point that all I wanted to do then was pour it out all over the world around me.
But I had some work to do first. A lot of work.
So God set up a new plan (new to me anyway) and a whole new game plan was laid before me. He started chipping away at that part of me I was still withholding and I finally heard the trumpet that brought the final wall around my heart for Him crashing down.
And then some really amazing things started happening. More and more, He revealed His heart to me and I began to crave Him - not just need Him - wholly and earnestly for the first time in my life.
2012 was a big year for that.
People all around me talk about what they're meant to do, what their purpose is, what their calling in life is. And more and more, I feel that call in my own life is this:
love
So I made a new kind of resolution this year.
My one little word for 2013 is LOVE.
In 2013, I want to love like He does. I want my heart to align with His, reaching for the people who think they deserve it least. I want my heart to break for what breaks His. I want to love like crazy.
completely
whimsically
unbelievably
inconveniently
truly
outrageously
unreasonably
madly
hopefully
(read Love Does to get a better idea of what I'm going for here, haha)
I resolve to delve deeper into His word and His heart than I ever have and get closer to Him.
I resolve to take my hands off the wheel and let Him point me where I need to go.
I resolve to love like He does.
Without fear and without conditions.
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What sealed this deal was something Frankie said to me on New Year's Eve. There's something about our friendship I've never been able to put my finger on, but somehow he always, always knows when something is on my mind. He reads me when I think no one can (and usually reassures me before I even know I need it).
So on December 31st, when my mind - like my heart, so prone to wandering from the comfort in His peace - was drifting, Frankie caught me.
"You will have your happy ending. You will. Because you believe in love."
Now I managed to fight off tears, but even if I hadn't, they would not have been tears of sadness.
Quite the contrary.
Because even though it may sound silly, it felt kind of like someone speaking a prophecy over my year.
