We took a walk

New Year's day, DH found that our favorite deli (Kornblatt's)was open so we drove over that a way for lunch.  As we passed the Jaguar dealership we saw that they have gone all holiday on us, putting antlers and a red nose on the leaping logo. Merry Christmas, ho, ho, ho!




We parked a ways from the deli and sauntered around in the dry, relatively warm day.  I strolled DH through a neighborhood where I used to live and bored him rather silly with tales of events that had occurred here and there.  Like the restaurant where I first found out that for some people, me included, drinking schnapps and eating pickled herring at the same time results in disastrously low blood pressure.  The only time I have ever passed out in a restaurant.

These doors belong to a middle eastern restaurant where we have been a couple of times, and each time, they have forgotten my order and left me without food.  Everyone else got served, and there I sat with nothing.  Once could have been an honest mistake.  Twice?  They don't need my business. But the doors are cool.




This neighborhood is upscaling considerably from the time I lived here.  There are a hundred little boutiques where once there were scruffy bars.  run down old houses have been converted to chichi salons, and the shoe repair shop with the resident cat that used to sleep in the window, is now a trendy coffee bar.  This used to be slums, but now it's where successful lawyers bring their husbands to dine. And yet, these bits and pieces of the old days still show up  here and there.

This is the front of an art studio. But I could swear that old guy lived behind the dumpster of the warehouse that used to be here.  You could tell when it was spring.  The bums would try to hit on you before they would spare-change you.  "Hey baby, ya wanna party?  You sure?  Well, could you spare a couple of dollars so I can go party?"  Back in those days, if I had a couple dollars to spare, I would go to the grocery store and treat myself to a box of Earl Grey tea.  Quiet parties.  My apartment had a south-facing bedroom and one Sunday morning when I treated myself to breakfast in bed, the sun broke through the clouds and filled the room like honey.  I just lay in bed sipping my tea and basking.

Yeah, doesn't take much to please me.  And it doesn't take much to amuse me, either.

Wish we had gotten closer.  This van is a rolling work of art.  "There's a lion above the fender./ You can offer legal tender, to help to make the van go/ so art in Portland can grow."  I love living in this city!

Oh, lunch at the deli was delicious!  I have fallen in love with their matzo-ball soup.  It tastes like comfort.