Food, friends, and frolics in Portlandia

While I have mixed feelings about the fact that I shelled out a rather large sum of cash to attend the TESOL 2014 conference, my feelings about Portland itself are not mixed at all: I love Portland. Portland is a pretty awesome town on just about every level and I had a fantastic time there. I could definitely see myself living there, except for the fact that the cost of living is a bit too high for me and I would be absurdly obese from all of the amazing food available. In addition to seeing Portland itself, I got to meet up with several people whom I hadn't seen in years, as well as one person whom I'd previously only known online, and we had a lot of fun.

On Wednesday night, after the keynote address (see my previous post), I met up with a blogger named Joy (of ForeignerJoy and AmericanJoy), whom I've known online for years now. We were in Korea at the same time, although we never met in real life. She is now in a Master's program for TESOL in Seattle - where she lives with her black and white mustachioed cat that she brought home from Korea :-) She and her boyfriend had come down for the conference, so we got together and wandered around downtown for a bit before settling at a delicious Mexican restaurant called Santeria. (Note: they give you a TON of food here - if you're staying in a hotel sans fridge and microwave and therefore can't take leftovers, order less and share!)

Joy
Joy and Ian

After I left Joy and her bf and hopped on the MAX (the light-rail) to head back to my hotel, I ended up having quite a bizarre ride. I've never had a public transit ride that was full of so many talkative, funny people - one of whom was a local ESOL teacher who was also attending the TESOL conference. We talked about bad smells, Israeli Mossad, ballroom dancing, and (of course) the TESOL conference, among other things. Then one guy says 'I'm gonna take a selfie, who's with me?' and everyone in the car got up, so I figured I would, too:

Wednesday night I realized (via Facebook) that Brooke - a friend and former coworker from my days teaching in Vladimir, Russia - was in Portland for the TESOL conference as well. She was presenting at the conference and had a pretty hectic schedule, but we agreed to meet up for lunch on Thursday. We decided to head for the Georgian food food-truck. Apparently food-trucks are a Hugely Big Deal in Portland, and you can get pretty much any kind of food from these things, and they are DELISH. Now, if you know me or have read any of my blogs for a while, you probably know that Georgian food is my absolute favorite food ever, although it is a huge challenge to find it in the US - especially in my part of the US. And Portland sells it out of the back of a food truck. Heaven! So not only did I get to see a really wonderful person whom I hadn't seen in ages, I also got to chow down on some exquisite Georgian food. Win!

Georgian food! If you're in downtown Portland, eat here.
Brookinchka!! :-)
Cheese khachapuri, lobio khachapuri, khinkali, eggplant salad, other-veggie salad = TASTE BUD HEAVEN

While we were eating, horse cops rode by!

Friday evening, I met up with Jill and Johnny - two friends of mine who moved to Portland from Florida ages and ages ago, and whom I hadn't seen since 2004. I had a great time catching up with them - and we had some great food, too, including some lovely Vietnamese dishes and the most amazing ice cream I've ever tasted at Salt and Straw. We finished the evening at some woman's house (the wife of a friend of a friend or something), drinking wine and discussing our favorite NPR personalities. I kid not.

Me & Johnny
Me & Jill

Some sort of Vietnamese mushroom dish

Saturday was pretty chill. I have my comprehensive exams for my MA coming up, so I spent some time studying for them. There was a local restaurant (the name of which I've sadly forgotten) located not far from my hotel where I had a wonderful brunch consisting of the best latte I had all week (and it's Portland, so I had some amazing lattes), as well as an omelette stuffed with some kind of specialty bacon and topped with salsa, fresh avocados, and sour cream. I camped out there for a while with my study notes.

That evening, my friend Linda (whose poetry blog is here, BTW) arrived. She and I knew each other ages ago when we both lived in San Diego, CA, and while we've kept in touch over the years (yay, internet!), I hadn't seen her since 2005. She now lives in southwestern Washington, and she drove down to spend some time with me. Earlier in the week, I had discovered that my hotel was within walking distance of an all-you-can-eat Indian buffet restaurant called Namaste, which was excellent. Linda mentioned having eaten at a delicious Indian buffet north of town on a previous trip to Portland, and upon hearing her description I was pretty sure it was the one near my hotel. So we walked to it, and it was! Nomnomnom.

Linda and Indian food, yay!

Linda and I had a great time catching up and sharing stories about all sorts of things from the past nine years of our lives. We also spent Sunday exploring downtown Portland. While the weather on Friday and Saturday had been pretty abysmal (even locals were complaining about how unusually heavy the rain was), Sunday was gorgeous. We drank a good bit of coffee, bought some specialty chocolate and some mouth-watering cupcakes, spent a bit too much money on souvenirs, and camped out for a while at a noodle shop. It was absolutely lovely. I could do that every day.... except that my bank account would probably rebel pretty quickly.

Linda and some Pad Thai
Linda and a cool elephant statue thingy, which (sadly) was too slick to climb.
Chinese Garden in Chinatown

Funny Chinatown signage

Bay Area Renaissance Festival 2014

Yesterday I went, with my father and brother, to the Bay Area Renaissance Festival in Tampa. We went together last year, although apparently I didn't blog about it. Last year, I discovered (and rather fell in love with) Sirena, the best act of the faire in my opinion. They put on a performance within five minutes of our arrival at the faire, and it was excellent. Seriously, they were the main reason I wanted to attend and their performance alone was worth the price of admission. I took a bunch of photos of them, as well as a few short video clips (below) - if you like that sort of thing, I definitely recommend buying their albums.

Sirena might have been my favorite performance, but they weren't the only one I enjoyed. Below are a few photos and videos from other acts that I enjoyed:
Crannog
Crannog
Crannog
The Bawdy Boys
The Bawdy Boys
Demzarah Gypsies
Demzarah Gypsies
Of course, one of the best things about any renfaire is the opportunity for people watching:



My brother and I
My brother in the stocks.
I like posing with trees.
Lastly, remember Molly, the Christmas Puppy that my dad adopted? She's gotten a lot bigger! She's full of energy and incredibly sweet.
Watch Molly playing :-)

Cat Lady Spring Break

The first week of March was Spring Break at the university where I both study and teach. It's a bit early for Spring Break, in my opinion, although perhaps The Powers That Be felt that we Floridians should be given our Spring Break before the college-aged masses from across the country descend on our state later in the month. Who knows. It had been t-shirt weather here in Orlando for the last two weeks of February, so when I started packing for my trip to southeast Georgia, I initially only threw t-shirts into my suitcase. I added a couple of sweaters as an afterthought, and it's a good thing I did as it was pretty cold the entire time I was there - and rainy most of the time I was there. As such, I spent a lot of my Spring Break huddling under the covers with my animals, keeping warm and dry. I didn't really do a damn thing blog-worthy, although I did take a good number of animal photos, especially on the dry days. Let's start with the dogs:

Wolfie is a little obsessed with his food bowl. He continually prances around with the damn thing, all the while looking incredibly proud of himself. Below is a video of Wolfie showing off his bowl-carrying skills.


I was going to take a cute photo of Viktor... then he did this.
Nadya now must be kept on a running tether at all times, because otherwise she gets loose and runs around the neighborhood. As she's one of the three cat-killers, we really cannot have her getting loose. She doesn't seem to mind the tether, though. It's pretty long, and she's still in the yard with Viktor and Kali.
Kali: Fat, lazy, adorable, shy, sweet, and occasionally kills cats. Sigh.
I swear Brin gets greyer every time I see him.
This is not our dog. She has apparently been running free through mom's neighborhood for the past couple of weeks - although she's not thin at all (and turned up her nose at a bowl of food), so she must have a home somewhere. Unfortunately, mom's dogs go nuts when she shows up. Brin even attacked her on Friday... perhaps after that she'll stay closer to her home.
Mochi being his adorable self, with Bagira in the background
My mom really didn't want me to post this, but is is seriously one of the most adorable photos ever, in my opinion. And it works well for a transition from dogs to cats.
This is Stranger. He showed up out at mom's land back in January. And by "showed up" I suspect I actually mean "was dumped" - he's a full grown male, but young. Super friendly.
He loves to roll over.
Watch Stranger in action:

This is Buddy. He was trapped as an adult feral cat in 2009. He didn't start allowing humans to pet him until January of this year.... and he has discovered that he loves it! Although if you watch the video below, you'll see his feralness rear its head (or its claws!) a few times. You can also clearly hear him purring :-)


Charlie, being all ladylike.

Bagira, who is always ladylike.

Echo, our oldest cat. We found her as a kitten in 2002.
And now for some rainy photos to show you what most of my Spring Break was like:
Merlin

In the distance you can see one of the kitties (Solly, I think)
Honey, Merlin, and Solly

Rocky Horror! Halloween! Grammar! The Inhumane Society!

It's been a busy couple of weeks around here, mainly because it was Halloween season - which, in my opinion, is the best time of the year. This year I was able to rock three different costumes, which made me incredibly happy. I do love a good opportunity to dress up.

On Friday, October 25th, a group of us went to go see the Rocky Horror Picture Show film and interactive performance put on by The Rich Weirdoes. 

Security made M. take off his "FBI" jacket, because "someone might think he was a real agent." Um, OK. The show itself was pretty fantastic though. I've seen RHPS put on in smaller venues, but this was definitely the largest and most interactive version I've ever been to.

Saturday one of my classmates threw a kickass Halloween party.

I went as a flapper.

Mr. Green and Miss Scarlet from Clue, if you were wondering.

And then of course, I taught class on Thursday dressed as a Dalek. As you do. I'd say about half of my students knew what I was immediately. The others were like, "What's a Dalek?"

ED-U-CATE!

Thursday I also finished up my fifth and final lesson to my students on teaching English grammar to EFL/ESL students. Yes, we spent five days on grammar. You want someone to talk for six and a half hours (thirteen if you consider that I teach two sections) on English grammar, I am apparently your girl. The PowerPoint by itself isn't quite as great. For one thing, SlideShare has mucked up my formatting, and you can't see my animations. Plus, as I've mentioned before, I do NOT write every word I say on my slides - I hate it when teachers do that. As a result, reading the slides won't give you as much information as sitting through my class would have. However, if you're an EFL/ESL teacher new to teaching grammar, it should give you some useful pointers.

And lastly, due to the combination of some really horrific animal-shelter related news that I read on Facebook and all these people posting about NaNoWriMo, I've become inspired to get back to work on The Inhumane Society. I started by editing the existing 140 pages - you can read the edited first part here - and by finally picking up where I left off. Once you're all caught up, you can read the latest installment of The Inhumane Society here.

Oh, and you know I'm still posting about my summer's adventures over at Cat Lady in Kyrgyzstan, right?