A New Love
Dear
Dunn Bros.,
I’m afraid it’s over. I would try to sugarcoat it and let you off easier, but we both knew this would happen. As much as we wanted it to work, the distance just killed us. Even a love like ours didn’t stand a chance. (True, I used to cheat on you with
Caribou, but that was always about convenience and never about my love for you.)
Truth be told, I’ve met someone else.
Stumptown and I have just met, but I can confidently say it’s the best coffee I’ve ever had. I’ve only been twice (once with a new friend,
Lindsey, and once with an old college friend and current Portland jazz guitarist
Dave Iula), but I’m already in love. Like you, Stumptown roasts their own coffee daily. But, unlike you, they French press the coffee. There’s no beating that. To top it off, it’s $1 for a bottomless cup of coffee. As you can see, I could not resist this new love.
I know this is hard, but let’s remember the good times. This is not about you. I will always love your coffee. Stumptown is just different, and right now, I need something different. As far as I’m concerned, you will always have the best cup of coffee in the Twin Cities.
Best Regards,
Ben
Becoming Portlanders.
Our 1-month anniversary of living in Portland came this past week, the same day as my first trip to Seattle for work. It's funny how going to Seattle is so commonplace here -- you just hop on a "shuttle" (a
very small plane that's
very susceptible to turbulance!) and land in about 30 minutes. Easy as that! As my colleague and I drove to the Marriott Waterfront, I was struck once again at how breathtaking the Pacific Northwest is. We can't wait for our family and friends to come visit!
We have less than one week now until we move into our "permanent residence" (pics coming soon) in Multnomah Village. We went to meet with the landlord again yesterday and signed the lease...we are SO excited to move in. It's got a yard and a garage, flowers growing, three bedrooms, windows in the kitchen...the works. We've been living without the majority of our "stuff" for almost five weeks now, so we're practically salivating at the thought of sleeping in our own bed, with our own pillows, using our own towels and being able to cook with our own dishes.
Until life settles down once again (and we move into our fifth dwelling since we've been married...sigh), we're having fun exploring the city. In my never-ending quest to update my wardrobe, we visited
NE and
NW Portland yesterday, along with the strangely appealing suburb of
Hillsboro. Why, oh why do we love suburbia so much? This morning we strolled along
Hawthorne and drove through
Mount Tabor Park. So much to see and experience in this new town of ours.
Food with a View.
Some of my colleagues were in from Seattle today, so a bunch of us went to the Portland City Grill after work. Besides the better-than-average happy hour food, the view is to die for. Check it out:
I don't know the women in these picture, but if you want, you can pretend they're my coworkers. :)
Sun Bears and Waterfalls
We found a perfect solution to Ben's parents' opossum problem (they have one living under their house) -- a Sun Bear. As we witnessed yesterday at the zoo, they look cute and cuddly, but can actually be very ferocious! We were nearly the only kid-less couple there, but had a great time seeing elephants, penguins, and musk oxen.
Today was perfect -- sunny and mid-50s. We drove out to the Columbia River Gorge area, which is simply breathtaking. Just a half-hour from Portland, we couldn't believe the beauty that surrounded us. We drove up to Crown Point, which boasts views of several mountains, along with the Columbia River, and supposedly DT Portland. Here's a pic -- look for the building on the right side -- that's where we parked and oohed and ahhed.
We then drove a little ways down to Multnomah Falls, the second-tallest waterfall in the U.S., and a definite tourist destination! We huffed and puffed as we hiked up to the bridge you'll see in the photo below, and continued about a mile past that. We are SO out of shape, but I'm hoping we'll make hiking a new hobby.
We went to Ethnos again tonight -- the third time! I feel like we're getting to know people, and though I'm just so-so about some parts of the service, I'm starting to really like it. We've been feeling very homesick lately, mostly for Indiana, and I know that having a church home here would help that. I've been thinking lately that I have an acute case of "grass-is-greener" syndrome. When we lived in Indy, we wanted to be anywhere else. When we were in Minnesota, we wanted to move to Portland. And now that we're in Portland, we wish we were in Indiana. Sigh... I know things will get easier. They have to. But until then, we'll soak up the incredible scenery all around us.
Here Comes Peter Cottontail
I thought about
being the Easter Bunny today. This is a big step for me. I’ve been deathly afraid of the Easter Bunny ever since I saw him as a little child at a “friend’s” birthday party. A 6-foot tall rabbit lures children with candy. What kind of a twisted world do we live in?
Maybe I should just call a temp agency.
One more Sunday, two more churches.
Can there be such thing as too much church? Ha! YES! This Sunday we yet again tried two churches in our quest to get connected. Here's how it went...
Lake Bible ChurchLast week when I started work, I found out that a girl I graduated from
college with, Sarah Tatone, also works there. Pretty wild. We connected, and she and her husband Luke invited us to their church. It reminded us a lot of
the churches we attended growing up, which were just fine, but not what we're looking for right now. Truthfully, we don't know what we're looking for.
Ethnos
We made a second trip to
Ethnos...while we weren't completely sold the first time around, we're moving in that direction, I think.
Kobie came with us, which was great! From what I can tell, they seem to have a strong community, although that community is mostly located in Beaverton. Luckily, the pastor and his wife host a small group in Raleigh Hills, very close to us.
Other weekend highlights...on Saturday we had lunch at the
Grand Central Bakery in Multnomah Village, and then had a cheap Saturday night date at Krispy Kreme!
New Kid on the Block.
I'm so tired. Physically, yes, because I hardly slept last night -- sometimes I can't get my mind to stop racing. But mostly just tired mentally after the first four days of my new job. It is just wild -- non-stop e-mails, meetings, and projects I don't know how to do yet. My client is a very large computer-related company that I shall henceforth refer to as MS (I don't want my blog coming up on our coverage searches at work!). There are 30+ teams at my company that work just on MS, that's how big it is. And right now, it's just mind-boggling. Things have to get easier soon, they just have to. Until they do, I'm just going to keep working hard and enjoy the weekends.
For those of you that care, here is my office building.
A New Career Path?
As long as I'm thinking about reinventing myself, maybe I should apply for the
Elephant Supervisor position at the
Oregon Zoo. You only need a high school diploma. Although, they do desire specialized coursework in elephant care.
I don't know about you, but
my alma mater did not offer specialized coursework in elephant care. Just one more way that Christian education is failing our youth.
Oh blessed freedom
I already know looking for a job is going to get frustrating. In addition to the constant rejection, I'll be holed up in my house all day looking at online job postings and writing cover letters.
That's why I was overjoyed to find the site
WifiPDX, which lists free wifi hotspots. I guess they're not entirely free. You usually have to buy coffee, but the caffeine helps ward off the crushing depression of being unemployed.
Maybe I should just get a job at one of the various hotspots. That is, unless my career as a
Hip Hop Dance Instructor takes off.
Intown at the Old Church.
Ben and I attended
Intown Presbyterian this morning -- they meet in a beautiful old church downtown, appropriately named the Old Church (below). Somewhat reminiscent of our beloved church in Indianapolis,
Redeemer Presbyterian, we're still making our minds up as to what we thought. I felt a little more at home with elements of the liturgy in the service -- the confession, the readings, the Eucharist, etc. They're between pastors, one woman I met after the service was quick to tell me, and that gives me a little hope. One troubling thing I heard was that many people drive from over an hour away to come to this church -- why is that? I mean, it's great and all, but I love the idea of a church being a community, even geographically. I want to live close to church friends, borrow eggs from each other, that sort of thing.
Perhaps the best part of the morning was having lunch with
Mike,
Liz, and Moses Kaufman, the folks that currently live in Indianapolis and started
The New Deal and know all of our Redeemer friends. It made my heart hurt to hear about everyone having babies and friends living just across the street from one another. The folks that attend Redeemer embody a lifestyle I'm striving for, and at the core of that is community. I want to plant a community garden, I want to watch each other's kids, I want to go on walks and be a part of a
neighborhood. I also want to drive a Volvo, but that's a whole other story.
A Lesson in Thievery.
Today was gorgeous -- absolutely perfect. It was sunny, about 60 degrees and a great day to meet another new friend,
Lindsey, for coffee at
Stumptown, shopping along Hawthorne, and breaking into her house. Seriously. She had accidentally locked a door she didn't have a key for, and therefore, we were locked out. Luckily, her neighbor was pretty handy with a ladder, and broke in through an open window on the top floor. Whew!
We loved
SE Portland. It has such a comfortable vibe -- independent coffee shops abound, as do second-hand clothing stores, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and houses with great front porches.
A view down Hawthorne. McMenamins' Bagdad Theatre offers $3 movies plus pizza and beer to boot -- I know Ben will want to frequent this place!We also drove up to Mount Tabor Park -- the site of a dormant volcano. Dormant -- I think that's what they said about Mount St. Helens too, and look
what happened! Volcanoes are an enigma to me; I might like to learn more about them.
A view from Mount Tabor Park. It was breathtaking. I hope I didn't freak Lindsey out with all of my "ooohs" and "ahhhhs."Our two weeks of fun is quickly coming to a close. I start work on Monday! Portland has gone far beyond our expectations so far -- we have met so many nice people and seen more beauty in this week and a half than I have yet in my lifetime. It's hard starting over, but I am so filled with thankfulness and excitement about this move.
Le Happy in my belly.
Last night we went to a wonderful little creperie called Le Happy with Brian, Tricia and Kobie. The food was fantastic, and we had a great time getting to know our fellow Portland transplants.
After dinner we walked to a few art galleries for First Thursday festivities. At the Elizabeth Leach Gallery, we saw one of
Richard Notkin's famous teapots. Portland seems to have a very vibrant art scene, and being at these galleries made us reminisce about our many nights spent at the
Harrison Center in Indianapolis, and how special our original
Kyle Ragsdale pieces are to us.
We haven't confirmed with Kyle, but are fairly certain we know all of the folks represented in this piece. BTW, this isn't one of ours, but we love it anyway.Today we are having lunch with a former Weber Shandwick colleague who moved to Portland a few years ago from Minneapolis. Tomorrow we are getting together with Stacey Osburn (my new boss/old boss) and her family for the opening weekend of the Saturday Market. Sunday we are getting together with some Redeemer-ites that are visiting Portland -- Michael and Liz Kaufman. What a small world.
In these first few weeks, we are so thankful to be spending time with and getting to know people. Human interaction is so crucial to my attitude, to my outlook on life!
Too much to take in.
There's a line from
American Beauty I think of often, and fits the day we had today: "Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in." Here's a few of the ways our day was filled with beauty...
- We heard it was going to rain around lunchtime, so took an early morning walk along the Willamette River. It never did rain though -- the sun shone all day and the sky was clear. It felt like summer! I even bought a great new
skirt at Target to celebrate.
- We visited Portland's
International Rose Test Garden, this time of year sans roses, but boasts the most impressive views of the city we've seen yet. Here's what the Rose Garden looks like when it's in full bloom, and yes, those are mountains in the background:
- We met
Kobie, our Minneapolis friend, at Fruition, a coffee shop located in the hip
NW 23rd area. We had never met before, but had a great conversation about life and church and community. And as we're sitting there, in walk this couple and ask if we're Ben and Nikki. Turns out Brian and Tricia, the couple we're getting together with tomorrow evening saw us as they were passing by the coffee shop randomly and stopped in to say hello! So tomorrow, Brian, Tricia, Kobie, Ben and I are getting together for crepes and the
First Thursday gallery openings.
What a great day.
You may remember that we visited Cannon Beach last weekend -- here it is:
Truth be told, I’ve met someone else. Stumptown and I have just met, but I can confidently say it’s the best coffee I’ve ever had. I’ve only been twice (once with a new friend, Lindsey, and once with an old college friend and current Portland jazz guitarist Dave Iula), but I’m already in love. Like you, Stumptown roasts their own coffee daily. But, unlike you, they French press the coffee. There’s no beating that. To top it off, it’s $1 for a bottomless cup of coffee. As you can see, I could not resist this new love.
