Heatherly

Worst Day of the Year ...

... though, really? not so much.

on sunday morning we hauled our cookies out of bed and bundled up for portland's annual Worst Day of the Year Ride. apparently, the second weekend in february is historically the coldest, wettest, snowiest of the year - in short, a perfect time for a charity bike ride.

 

the morning started off cold and hazy - though it did feature donuts

 

this pirate ship bike was kickass. i tried to get a better picture later, but i suck at simultaneously riding a bike and taking pictures.

but by the time we were headed to our second rest stop, the sky was blue, the sun was out and people were shedding clothes so fast it was almost a tribute to portland's other true love (along with bikes, portland hearts strip clubs. seriously. the most per capita. i promise.)

it was a very chill ride - 18 miles through the city, 3500 happy people, and lots and lots of costumes. before long, we were back at the start/finish line (a brewery, of course), for food and sunshine and lots of beer. good times.

 

random coda #1: underneath the morrison bridge, we passed an older homeless gentleman actively crocheting a really pretty striped blanket. i almost crashed into the pirate ship bike couple, i was so surprised.

random coda #2: homeowners along the bike route 'tailgating' in their front yards and handing out beers to their favorite costumes as people rode past = i heart portland.

random coda #3: got a new bike and it is made of awesome. if you are keeping track, that is now four bikes and two people in our house. i still love the retro new belgium cruiser but - like many things based almost entirely on looks - our relationship is really suited for the occasional torrid weekend fling, and not so much the long term relationship. i'll be keeping her on as a mistress, of course.

dear kristien,

as promised, i tried to keep my end of the bargain. you knit me a kickass cowl (that i have been wearing all the time, btw), and i give you a moody, emo photo shoot worthy of all the cowl-wearing modelicious fashion types strutting their way across the interwebs. did someone say fierce?

uhm, perhaps not.

i tried, i really did. but no one told me how hard it is to take a picture of yourself in your bathroom mirror without cutting half your face off.

or how all the little toothpaste globs on the mirror would look really gross.

or how my backup photographer would rather just go for a bike ride.

 

that's the if you'd just take the dang picture already we could go for a stupid bike ride fake smile.

but mainly? i give really, really bad emo.

i know. stop laughing. but i do think the bike-helmet hair really added to the fashiony-ness of it all.

xoxo,

h.

happy, happy

one of the upsides to having typepad eat your password and refuse to let you into your blog for several weeks is that, if you're real lucky, someone else will have already posted all the pictures and stories that you meant to blog and save you the time and effort.

so, for the detailed, with pictures, version of the holidays chez heatherly, hightail it over to sam's corner of the interwebs por favor. now that typepad seemingly no longer hates me, i'll get my act together soon and update this beeyatch with actual content. i really will. pinkie swear.

snow day!

so, apparently, i have seen - nay, lived through - armageddon, portland-style, and it looks a lot like two inches of snow.

the part of me that used to drive an '89 taurus station wagon with a questionable set of brakes through white out conditions in michigan to get to high school on a routine basis finds the whole experience of having an entire city shut down for a snowstorm silly, at best.

nonetheless, i had a crazy long week, and a crazy busy weekend, and when the email came announcing that the office would be closed today, i was oh-so happy to ignore the stupid amount of work i have piled up, and take a snow day.

now if you'll excuse me, i need to pour myself a glass of wine and get back to the couch before the heather-shaped indent i made there all day gets cold.

hope you had as nice a monday as i did.

no respect.

 

 

now we're official.

i thought having more bikes than people in the house made us nearly-official portlanders. according to my coworker this morning, i've officially made it, well, official.

... this morning found me in the lobby of my office building in too many layers - including rain pants, one of the least flattering garments known to god or man - with water flowing off every inch of me, shlepping my bike helmet and saddlebags. and apparently (this, according to janine, is what pushed me over the edge into full-blown oregonian status) under my seriously bedraggled bangs, i looked pretty happy about it. 

if you would have told me a year ago i'd be biking to and from work in the dark and the pouring rain dressed like a complete idiot i would have told you that you were out of your fucking head. (for starters, i'm afraid of bikes. and there is no way in hell i would go out in public in rain pants.)

stupid portland corrupting me.

.

so strange and sad that i was crying tears of joy at 8pm pacific last night to discover that America came out, en masse, for change only to find myself choked up for entirely opposite reasons this morning to find that perhaps we haven't changed so much at all.

the apparent passage of prop 8, constitutionally banning gay marriage in california, was a test for the entire country. people from every state in the nation donated money against prop 8, and from every state (except vermont!) in support of the measure. it makes me incredibly sad to think that forty years after Loving v. Virginia overturned anti-miscegenation statutes -- racism justified at the time as an expression of what god intended in the bible -- America has evolved so little that we'll accept a new discriminatory regime, every bit as hateful and destructive as the race-based one we rejected so many decades ago.

hockeytown. yes, already.

what do you mean, "that seems quick"? you weren't suffering through each day of the off-season too, buoyed only by the hockey hall of fame's stanley cup blog and the fact that hockey tidbits qualify as front page news over at the detroit free press's website?

commies.

anyhoo, a couple weeks ago the girls saddled up and headed to the motherland for our annual pilgrimmage of mullets, canadian beer, and swedes. ah, the motherland, where joe louis's fist stands as a proud symbol, where defrocked mayors with ankle-tethers refuse to leave office, and where canada's national health care and age-18 drinking limit shine like a beacon across the river. sweet, sweet detroit.

we started the trip with our usual - a pilgrimage to joe louis arena to see our boys. in a serious lapse in judgment, we stopped before the game to pound fists with iron joe and channel the spirit of detroit. bad call. just like the last time we did that, our boys did not fare so well in the game to come.

nonetheless, we couldn't really be angry they lost. because this was no average game. this, my dears, was the season home opener - with stanley cup banner raising and trophy ceremony that we had second row seats to! (are you hyperventilating just a little yet? i am.)

it was basically the best thing ever. hockey greats were in the house, everyone was proud and happy, and i might have teared up a bit when gordie howe handed the banner to nick lidstrom.

in the immortal words of Handsome Boy Modeling School, oh my god, they're gorgeous.

they had the lights down so this picture sucks but that's gordie howe and ted lindsay. awesome.

even with the crap outcome, the game was great. the second row put us in spitting distance of the ice, in touching distance of the best hockey haircut ever (sixer of labatts tall boys to whoever does that to their hair for the trip next year), and in taunting distance of the opposing penalty box. we may have gotten yelled at for taunting this guy. apparently they don't like it when you harass the caged idiots. the ones on the ice are fine to taunt.

best. hair. ever.

reach out and touch the penalty box.

my future second husband.

after the hockey, we spent the rest of our long weekend enjoying the unseasonably warm (75F!) fall weather, drinking beer, eating cider donuts, and being lazy by the lake.

 

as a matter of fact we did wear hockey sweaters any chance we could get all weekend long.

 

mmm, donuts.

we also saw the worst michigan football game ever. we won't speak of it again, but let's just say thank god for bigass beers and getting a suntan at the game.

in between everything else, we kept drinking labatts, ate some good food, and came up with the best drunken revision to the rules of trivial pursuit ever. seriously? revolutionary.

yes, michigan indeed.

 

 

fleet foxy, i love you.

musicfest northwest came to town this weekend and we saw ourselves some pretty decent bands.

fleet foxes was by far the standout performance, in spite of (because of?) the guy behind me screaming like a little girl for the entire show. i'm pretty sure he cried when the band played 'mykonos.' or maybe that was me, after hearing him scream out his eternal devotion to "fleet foxy" for the millionth time.
 

i was genuinely surprised that he made it through the entire show without throwing his panties onto the stage. it was a small venue. he totally could've gotten them up there.
 

no pictures from the show, though. honestly, no pictures of anything i've done over the last few weeks, including a mom visit, trips to the gorge/beach/wine country, biking, eating, planting, painting, knitting, canning, drinking beer, watching football, or turning 29.

 so use your imaginations, kay? and in the meantime, enjoy these pictures i found from a farm-to-table dinner we went to a few weeks ago. organic farm, sunset, whole pig, one of my favorite breweries sponsoring... enough to make a little girl's heart go pitter pat.

mmmmmm, chicharron.

also? chicharron with salt caramel in a homemade chocolate shell. sweet jesus.

we're almost official.

as Portlanders, that is. there are now more bikes than people living in our house.
a couple weeks ago, the boy and i spent a steamy saturday afternoon outside by the river, celebrating all things bike, brew and alternative energy at the tour de fat, brought to stumptown with love by new belgium brewery. (if you live west of the mississippi and the tour is coming to a spot near you, i completely recommend checking it out.)

this year's tour brought with it 100 degree temperatures - totally ideal for standing outside for five hours drinking beer, no? but everyone was happy, the beer was frosty, there was shade to be found (sort of. if you squinted.) and good times were had by all.

michael phelps was there, celebrating his 97th gold medal.

and in portland, friends apparently DON'T let friends wear green terry cloth shorty shorts.

there were frankenbikes to play with.

i might have been a little obsessed with the one with sneaker wheels.

there were bands, and a pancake-making-backpack-contortionist (word), and an all-girl minibike dance troupe revue, and even a guy who traded in his car for a sweet custom bike. to say nothing of the new orleans style funeral for the Escalade. (um, clearly the tour de fat is not invited to my native detroit).

 

 
but best of all? at the end of the day there was a raffle. and someone won herself a kickass cruiser bike.

(ignore dorky picture. the combination of 6 hrs in 100 degree heat plus beer does not lend itself to cuteness.) i rode it all the way home, complete with stupid grin. what a great day.