I get sad when I don't read things on LJ, but I'm part of the problem because I don't write things on LJ. I think I have gotten past my exhibitionist period, or perhaps I've just gotten out of the habit and need to get back into it.

Last weekend emdiar and I went to Portland, Oregon for a quick four-day vacation. I will start with the funniest thing that happened, which may be of especial interest to Grimm fans:

We were walking back to our hotel at about 11pm after having a couple of beers at the Rogue brewpub. Downtown seemed fairly quiet. Then, suddenly, we saw that a police car had blocked off the road a couple of blocks down. Then we saw a bunch of camera trucks in a parking lot. Oooo, a shoot! Sure, we see lots of those in our neighborhood, but it was kind of interesting to see it in another town and we thought we'd see what was up.

The crew was shooting a guy running up the sidewalk screaming in terror. There was a golf cart driving up the sidewalk in front of him with a camera on the back. Clearly, this was Grimm and not Portlandia. Mike squinted at the figure across the street and said, "Those screams of terror sound familiar!" After the next take, the crew started resetting the scene, giving Mike the opportunity to see if his suspicions were true without interrupting the shoot. "Brian Finney!" he shouted.



The actor immediately trotted over and, surprise! It was in fact Mike's old friend Brian, who he's known since they both lived in Seattle in the '90s, doing independent theater and making ends meet by working together at a produce stand at Pike Place Market. Brian was just as surprised to find us there as we were to find him. We chatted with him for a few minutes and got to meet the star of the show, David Giuntoli, who seemed incredibly nice.

In addition to this run-in with one of Mike's old friends, we got to see several of my old friends from my Hampshire days (including one, greyaenigma, who is on LJ). Three of the four I hadn't seen for probably 15 years. For the most part, it was like we were picking up exactly where we had left off. It was great to see how many of our interests still dovetail and how many new interests that I've developed which they are also interested in; it was great to know that they are people I still want to be friends with. I also got to briefly see some folks I know from my professional life; it was nice to see that they are all doing great.



One of the highlights of our visit, however, was the eating out. Oh, the eating out! From food carts to fancy restaurants, we had some truly exceptional meals there. We got coffee at Stumptown, which puts every single coffee shop on Coffee Row in DTLA to shame. I had a vegetarian Philly "cheese steak," with seitan substituting for the cheese. There was a Middle Eastern food cart that served me a falafel wrap that had some of the best falafel I've ever eaten, and a tasty noodle dish from Hale Pele, a tiki bar with serious ambiance. We ate at the legendary Mother's Bistro and Bar, which has the Platonic ideal of biscuits as well as what I'm told are fantastic Bloody Marys. And we had some of the best ice cream I've ever eaten at Cool Moon Ice Cream (while I've heard great things about Salt and Straw, they use a corn syrup base so that was out).

The dining highlight of our week, however, was Natural Selection, a fancy vegetable-focused restaurant. All selections are either vegetarian or vegan; however, they don't call themselves a vegetarian restaurant. Unlike just about every other vegetarian restaurant I've ever visited, Natural Selection does not fall into the trap of substituting tofu for meat, but instead creates intriguing dishes that don't need either meat or a meat substitute. We had a four-course meal with wine pairings that was the most exquisite meal I've had since we ate at Marinus for our anniversary a couple of years ago. If we lived in Portland I'd go there every week. Instead, I'll just have to find ways to go to Portland more!