A Fine Day

This morning I woke up with the intention of making up for yesterday's waste, which was spent waiting for the movers with my bed who never showed. I put on some jeans and a leather jacket, and feeling sufficiently urban, made my way towards food and freedom. I was craving a giant burrito, but the discovery of McGrath's Fishhouse along the way toward Chipotle's made me reconsider. Some healthy seafood might be more satisfying in the long run considering my general sedentary behavior recently, I thought. So I stopped in, sucked down a Long Island Ice Tea and ordered Tombo Tuna topped with crab. mmmmm, crab. It was delicious, even if the tuna was a little over done.

Then I waddled over to the MAX station, noticing all the Korean shops near the shopping center. It's funny to me when the Korean says one thing and the English translation says quite another. For instance, 식품 generally translates to 'grocery store', but in this case it said Oriental Gifts. Hmm. Then there was the bee-dee-oh store, which made me smile, and offered no translation, so it's my guess that they cater strictly to Koreans who want to rent bee-dee-ohs. Oh how I want to walk in and babble something at them and get the talking monkey look. That's just so much fun. There was some other Korean stores, too, but they didn't look that interesting. I need to find a Korean restaurant that delivers. That's important.

DAMN, the MAX is nice! By far the nicest public transport I've ridden on in the US. Smooth, quiet the only problem I have is that no one was checking tickets, so I feel as if I got ripped off buying one and that I'm going to have to pay more taxes because people ride for free. Kinda like how I appreciate it when someone checks my signature on the receipt vs the credit card. But then I get pissed-off when someone checks my ID for buyin' booze. I guess I'm a hypocrite.

I got off in downtown Portland next to the library, which is a beautiful enough old building that people were taking pictures of it. I'm sure it's considered historic, although it was probably built in the 1920's. We have a slightly different scale of history here in the western frontier of America.

Then it was the street car up to the trendy NW section of town. There are some cool furniture boutiques and things up here, but because I have no interest in carrying a couch on the train - no matter how nice it is - I stuck to my original plan of spending money at Music Millennium. This place is proof that the whole "illegal file sharing is killing my record company/CD store!" argument is pure bullshit. This place is thriving. There was live music and people crawling throughout the place. Maybe - just maybe - your label/store failed because you sell shitty music!!!!! Ever think of that??? I picked up four CDs, a DVD, and a postcard. Whiskeytown, Tom Waits, Johnny Cash, the Pogues and the documentary Gunner's Palace. Merry Christmas to me!

All in all it was a fine day. Fresh air, rain in my eye, a walk and train ride through town. Yay Portland!