Downsizing in Retirement? But where?

Downsizing was on everyone's mind. The stress people endure just because of a lifetime of clutter they have accumulated added to the retirement dilemma and limited income and you have the perfect reasons for wanting to live in something much smaller.

Park Model in RV Resort

Once the decision has been made to move the question is where? People as asking themselves Should we sell our house here in the north and buy something smaller for much less in a warmer climate? It has occurred to me that we might need to rethink what we are doing.

It is a temptation to sell here in Portland, Oregon, for example, because a person can buy something in the Southwest USA for less and have disposable income left over to have MORE fun right now. When the weather is warm in the winter that person will be at home while all those snow birds are living in small resorts. Sound about right doesn't it?

RV Resort Bocci Ball Tournament

Then summer comes...it gets very hot in the southwest in the summer. Those people want to do the snowbird thing in reverse and fly north to find some cooler weather. BUT, it is very expensive and there is really not that much available in the way of short term rentals for vacationing people. A hotel or motel is not affordable at all. Most people spend a very short period of time in the north. Better than nothing I suppose.

Snowbird Friends

It might be that downsizing to a smaller place in some location that is perfect in the summer would be smarter. When you came back north you would be at home and probably near your families and friends. The spend less on your winter location. The southwest is ripe for the picking when it comes to snowbird living. There is so much available at a reasonable price, especially in RV resorts. Even purchasing a small park model like we own is possible for less than $20,000. You will have a more fun than you ever imagined but not be tied to so much responsibility.

It is just a thought. Downsize at home in the north and snow birding small in the southwest has been our choice and I am so grateful that we have decided to do that. We live in a place that those coming north could not afford to visit for very long. Life is good!

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Note: I happen to think that Idaho has some of the best locations for downsizing. Check out McCall for your small home in the north. It is gorgeous.

 Summer

Just Keeping Portland Weird or Scary Clowns?

It was just a normal Tuesday in Portland Oregon.  A #clown sighting didn't even cause the sighter to call 911 and he was trying to get into her car!

Several years ago I flew home to Oregon without a suitcase. I was sure that I had enough clothes in my closet to stay decently covered for a couple of days. It turned out I didn't.

That began the curious incident of the grandma clad like a clown running back and forth between her house and her daughters. No police were involved. Well, actually her daughter IS a policeman so I guess there is that.

Now it seems that clowns have appeared across our country and they are scaring the holy c*#%p out of people. (Maybe the clown people don't have anything else to wear. I understand that.) As a result, blog posts are turning away from election rants to talk about clowns.

We have had a couple of sightings here in Oregon. One was in Redmond (central Oregon) and that probably turned a few heads and did scare the people that were involved. But Redmond is not Portland in any way shape or form.

Darth Vader, unicycle riding
with fire-breathing badpipes.

When one turned up in Portland, it was just business as usual. It takes a village to keep Portland Weird and everyone is doing their part.

Even though the incident involved a silver clown trying to get into a woman's car when she was stopped at an intersection, she did not call 911. She called the non-emergency number. She didn't think it was an emergency.

I have to remind myself that weird is not weird around here. In fact a police spokesman didn't even raise an eyebrow. The local Oregonian Newspaper had this to say:

"We reached out to Portland Police to see if there's been an uptick in clown-related crimes. Sgt. Pete Simpson, spokesperson for the Portland Police Bureau, said via email that he hadn't heard of that specific incident. 

"In Portland, where Darth Vader rides a unicycle and has a fire-breathing set of bagpipes," Simpson added, "clown sightings might just be an average Tuesday."

So what can I say...it is Saturday here and I suppose it about as average as it gets.

Oh, and I do bring a suitcase when I come home now.  I'm just saying!

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Rubber Shoes in Hell wrote a great post and brought the clown thing to my attention. Thank you Michelle.

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Keeping Portland Weird

• Cops Stop Umbrella-Wielding Clown on Ravenel Bridge | Mix 96

Where Has My "Outrage" Gone?

My husband and I went downtown yesterday to share the Portland (Oregon) Brewfest. This gathering of beer drinkers outnumbers pretty much any other like it both near and far. It is an event held the last weekend in July EVERY year.

We generally arrive downtown via our mass transit line and walk through the core area to the Willamette River waterfront. I love the walk and that beautiful urban area between Goose Hollow past the city library and beautiful shopping areas. It is home so what can I say.

Yesterday we stopped at a brewpub a couple of blocks from the brewfest to have a small dinner before heading home. We were willing to wait for a table outside. It was a beautiful day. I had a double plate of appetizer tacos and settled back to finish my glass of wine.

The rental bikes that are the new rage here in Portland were everywhere and traffic was being very cautious because of it. The world passed at our feet.

A red Toyota was parked directly in front of us and I remember noticing the beautiful wax job and how immaculate it was. The owner of the car was about to drive away when another man dressed in running clothes hurried to catch the car before it drove away.

There, not ten feet from me a drug deal was completed and the buyer turned away avoiding our eyes. The dealer didn't even change expressions as he pulled out into traffic.

My husband and I looked at each other and neither of us changed expressions either. It was at that moment that I wondered where my sense of outrage had gone. In fact, I took another drink of wine and continued to enjoy our day out.

Don't you find that interesting? What is happening to us?  Hmmmmm!

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PDX Oregon At It's Best!

The Woods are Dark and Deep....

Rock Creek

McMenamin's Octagonal Barn

It's Morning at Home!

Wind Mills 

Lois, Let's Go to Bed So These People Can Go Home

Goodbye little Doll House!

It is tricky to know just the right minute to leave. Going home from and party is only one time when we face that dilemma. Leaving our home in Arizona is another.

When we are at a party, I usually am ready to go home before it is polite and my husband just ignores me. Then, once in awhile I will settle in for the duration. Getting up just doesn't appeal to me so I ignore the signs...yawns, sighs and big gaps in the conversation. Going home can be tricky.

Now we are thinking about going home to Oregon. We need to leave our Doll House for six months. It will go to bed and we will wake up the house in Oregon. But the trick is WHEN?

We usually have a schedule that we decide on long before the departure date. I will begin ironing and even packing so far ahead of that time that I find myself digging through suitcases to retrieve clothes.

This year we have a new plan. We are going to wait until the day before our departure, pack our suitcases and the car, go to bed and leave early the next morning. (Our party hosts are glad we don't do that at their house!)

Our little house is saying, "Lois, let's go to bed so these people can go home!"

Have a wonderful day.

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Guns and Mental Illness: The View From My Front Porch

I play a learning game with myself occasionally. When I feel very strongly about something, I need to be reminded that the strength of my opinion is usually inversely proportionate to the depth of my knowledge... the less I know the louder I talk. So to tone myself down I write down what I think I know and then research to see if I am even close. Here is one I wrote after the incident in Roseburg, Oregon a couple of weeks ago. 

Note: The best statistics are available on Mother Jone website. Read the information and see what you think.

See this article about Patrick Kennedy's take on mental illness and the Roseburg killings.

From 1900 until 1958 there were four mass murders here in the United States. In fact, in my youth I did not even know that sort of thing could ever happen. But as the years passed, I saw President Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinated. It was a string of beads that added up to mass murder in my mind. By the time my oldest was graduating from high school the ship had sailed on good manners and rebellion was the norm. That is how I remember it.

In spite of the talk about gun registration and how it has impacted us, I think there may be another more logical reason for the problems we see now.

Here is what I have found:

In 1982 Republican Ronald Reagan defeated Democrat Jimmy Carter and became president of our country. The Republicans took over our congress. Ronald Reagan believed that our citizenship was taking advantage of government programs. He convinced the public that "welfare cheats" and programs for mentally ill were the cause for many of our country's financial problems. As soon as he became president he and his party set about correcting the money problems stripping those programs bear. President Carter saw mental health as a significant problem in our country but Reagan would not acknowledge that it was an issue...

One month prior to the election, President Carter had signed the Mental Health Systems Act, which had proposed to continue the federal community mental health centers program, although with some additional state involvement. Consistent with the report of the Carter Commission, the act also included a provision for federal grants “for projects for the prevention of mental illness and the promotion of positive mental health,”.... With President Reagan and the Republicans taking over, the Mental Health Systems Act was discarded before the ink had dried. from Salon

This was when the Reagan administration touted the concept of "homeless by choice" and called the mentally ill veterans among others "double dippers" for taking benefits they were legally entitled to. Those benefits were taken away and people were left with such a little bit of income that it was very hard for them to survive. I had a mentally ill uncle that was a veteran of WWII that was caught in this web.

During the following years facilities that had housed, treated and guided mental health care closed. Homelessness here in Oregon was rampant and as we drove down the freeways we could see homeless camps everywhere. It is said that Reagan did not understand mental illness. Maybe he thought homelessness was okay for the poor and mentally ill. The beginning of an era of "turning a blind eye" to human suffering was begun. Our veterans are still living on the streets today.

And I believe:
Those that are mentally ill are not seeking treatment in a consistent way. In fact, as I understand it, the homeless now can sleep on the public streets if they want...legally. I suppose that is cheaper and easier than actually dealing with the problem.

We need to push for better mental health care and disseminate information about the causes, signs, possible problems and provide help. We certainly do not systematically promote good mental health practices in public media nearly as much as we should.

I doubt very much if public schools are addressing the subject at all. And it has been my experience that school counselors are overwhelmed when it comes to helping students with mental health issues. Help from public mental health clinics may could be hard to find. It is a daunting task.

Like the killer in Roseburg, most of those people that act on the need to go on a killing rampage are mentally ill. Seeing the possible link between what is a historical fact and what is happening today is not a huge leap. Not in my opinion. Current gun laws that do not restrict ownership of military style weapons and lack of better mental health care are the perfect brewing ingredients for more and more disasters.

We cannot change the past. What is, is. But we can take a good hard look at our opinions on gun ownership and mentally illness. We can go beyond shouting loud and finding excuses. Yes, it is the people that pull the trigger that kill people. Yes, the gun laws do give us the right to keep arms. The Supreme Court has decided that we can do that.

What if we focused our attention on going to war on mental illness? Let the gun lobby have their guns...I for one give up. They win that battle. If what is happening is their fault then that is on their conscience. They have more money and so their influence carries more weight.

But finding solution for mental illness is a battle no one should give up on. Can't we do something...anything...positive to act on that cause and move on?

I know this is simplistic and those of you that are more knowledgeable than me could change this discussion. But sometimes just doing something good can make a lot of bad seem less of a burden.

Does anyone have a solution? You tell me.

Just a thought!

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Wouldn't it be fun to see the gun lobby and the NRA go out of business because no one will fight with them anymore? Doesn't that just make you smile?

Oregon Wine Country: Better and Better

The lovely thing about living in Oregon Wine Country is that every small trip can turn into a vineyard tour. I don't recall having a plan for that day but as we drove home to Hillsboro, Oregon from Corvallis after our grandson's graduation at Oregon State University we found ourselves on the backroad. It was a beautiful summer day and we are retired so we have a lot of time to do as we want.

We wandered up Oregon Highway 99W which runs north and south through the Willamette Valley west of the I-5 corridor. The pace is slow and the wineries are plentiful. It was just a matter of take your pick! In this particular case we happened on to Illahe Vineyards near Salem, Oregon. Illahe is a relatively small vineyard with a setting that took my breath away. While we did buy a couple of bottles of wine, the biggest treat was the way the winery left everything out in the open so the whole process was visible.

A very old Tommy Dorsey record was on the turntable and we just wandered around during the tasting taking it all in. It makes me smile everytime I think about that beautiful day.

A view and the tools of the trade plus a bicycle gear!
I didn't know how any of it worked so maybe that gear is important.

I hope your summer is as wonderful as ours. Be well!

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This part of Oregon is home to several Native American tribes. The word "Illahe" is Chinook for earth, place or soil. 

Related articles

• Oregon Wine Country: @Portlandia, Wine and Photographs
• Hotspot: Wine Shop in Oregon Wine Country
• Capturing the Story: 5 Photographs that Tell a Story
• Backroads in Oregon: Garden Vineyard, Hillsboro
• Living Social @PDX: Touring the tiny (Helvetia) Winery

Spirit Airlines: We Paid The Price for Cheap

Is Spirit Airlines so cheap it is cutting corners on safety? Why do I ask? Well the experience we had with this airline makes us wonder. We are learning the hard way that traveling cheap is not only uncomfortable but also scary. There is a price to be paid.

Last week we traveled to San Diego for our grandson's Marine basic training graduation. We were looking for affordable tickets and decided on Spirit because the price was right. Boy were we in for a surprise. You definitely cannot get something for nothing, not even on Spirit.

If you plan on taking clothes with you, you are going to pay. Nothing on Spirit is free. In fact, overhead storage in the cabin costs more than checking your luggage at the ticket counter. There is no food or drinks, not even a glass of water and the seats are so close that the seat back recline a total of 5 inches (or less).

But that was not the bad part. The pilots may not be as good as they should be. When we boarded the plane in San Diego to come home, the pilot seemed a bit distracted even before we were in the air and the cabin crew was burned out. On the tarmac as we were getting ready to take off, the pilot was having a hard time driving in a straight line. He/she turned corners like a beginning driver and swerved as though avoiding some obstacle. When we got into the air it appeared we were on auto pilot even when the flight was rough. We have experienced turbulence on other airlines but the pilot immediately found air that didn't bounce us around. Not on this flight. This pilot was hanging tough. No changing altitude for him.

When we approached Portland it seemed that the pilot could not find the airport. We turned left then right and even when we landed, the plane veered all over everything. It was very frightening.

So, will I fly Spirit again? Never. Cut rate prices should not mean terrifying! Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

Just thought you needed to know.

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Oh by the way Spirit said their sales went up when they started charging more for carry on luggage.  If you are a greedy traveler trying avoid checking luggage, your fellow travelers do not like you all that much. It is just bad manners!

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• 20+ Hobbies: Slightly Dangerous and Weird
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How interesting are you? 12 Conversation Starters

I just read an article on the More website called
Memoir: Where Did Our Friendship Go Wrong?  I thought about this post because making and keeping friends can be so hard. I hope you enjoy it.

Have you ever been in the middle of a story at dinner when people began to leave the table to go to the bathroom?  I have...a lot of times!  It seems that what I view as "interesting" is (yawn) "I need to see the restroom decor NOW" compelling.  This can be embarrassing but then it is not too late to learn.  I am feeling hopeful I can share the conversation.  (And remember, this post is about what makes YOU interesting and how you can go about doing that.)

So, how interesting are you?  And better yet, what things do you do in your life that makes you more interesting?

Interesting travel conversation?  Maybe.
Nevada Shady Lady Ranch bordello in the middle of no place!

Traveling (yikes!)
I always thought travel would make me more interesting. But, here is the thing we all need to remember...no one, absolutely no one...wants to hear about our vacations. If the people you are talking to were not with you on the vacation, they are not interested.  Boring people usually have very long vacation stories and I have learned the hard way that NO ONE CARES!  In fact, I even have a hard time reading a long travel blog post.  So I am the same way.

Reading
We may be onto something here but it depends who you are talking to.  My first question of a new acquaintance is "Are you reading a good book right now?"  If the person is a reader they will want to share.  If they aren't they will tell me.  Some close friendships have been formed over the sharing of a new book or magazine article.  I think I am very interested in books so it works for me.  Does that work for you?

Showing an Interest
Do you like to hear about other people's hobbies?  There is always something the other person is passionate about. The ability to talk about a range of topics is not only fundamental to having friends, it is what makes us interesting. That is why being well read and moderate in our opinions is probably a good idea.  When a person says they love to geocache, you need to know what that is. Or would you find that sort of thing worth a yawn? I personally like this type of conversation.

Sports
Do you need to be able to make table conversation sometimes and are surrounded by sports nuts?
In the age of televised sports 24/7 it serves us all well to know at least a little about sports.  Just enough to get a conversation started.  If you aren't a big fan you can always listen and learn.  A sports fan wants to talk about the latest ball game.  "How about those Yanks!" always gets things going if you are talking to the right person.

Weather
Was it Mark Twain (or Dudley Warner) that said "Everybody talks about the weather but no one does anything about it."  If you are in unknown territory the weather is good for an exchange of a few words.  But does it make us interesting? This is tricky...people want to talk about it but they do not want us to tell them what they already know.  There is a lot of difference between discussing how they feel about the weather and us telling them the rain is not going away.

People
I always thought that fascinating people were an interesting topic of conversation.  However, I could be wrong.   Example:

• I once talked to the man that invented the first digital camera image in the 1950s.  His picture was selected as the most important image of the that decade by Life Magazine.  His name is Russell Kirsch and he lives here in Portland.  I had written a blog post about him and he found me in the phone book and gave me a call.  We talked about his work and he related how he came to be doing what he was doing.
• Norman Leyden, former conductor of the Portland Symphony called me too.  I had left him a note after hearing him play the clarinet with the Pink Martini group on New Years Eve. Norman Leyden actually did arranging for the Glenn Miller band during WWII.  His parting words for that conversation was "I hope I hear from you next New Years Eve!  Blog post...

Here is the thing, a close friends said I was a name dropper!  Holy Moly!  So, even if we have some interesting things happening in our lives we have to be careful not to make people feel threatened with our stories.  Being interesting(?) can, I have learned, be the kiss of death.  Especially if you appear to be bragging which is the way I came across.

Listening
I know that people find me more interesting when I simply listen to them. A good question once in a while or a pertinent fact that involves other people and invites them to give their opinion is a good way to go. The listener can be the most fascinating and interesting person in the room.  Conversation starter are great items to have in our backpack:

1. Did you read_____?____?
2. What was your favorite book of all time?
3. What do you think about_______?_____?
4. If you were doing ____?_____ what would you have done?
5. Do you remember when______?______?
6. Gender specific (I'm sorry but this is actually just reality)
• Men...sports, yard work, work, hobbies/food.
• Women...family, clothes, jewelry, shopping, style/their earrings :)
7. Who is your favorite author/food/music?
8. What are you having for dinner tonight?  Both men and women love to be complimented on their cooking and share food ideas or special diets.
9. Do you know a good place to get Chinese/Thai/Steak/Happy Hour?  Everyone loves food!
10. What do you know?  Really, give me something new to think about...what do you know?
11. Could I ask your opinions about something?
12. Start slow...if you are just getting to know people say "Hi" and work up to a longer conversation.  Overbearing is not good.!

In my world the idea that I might listen and not talk is key to being accepted.  I had a man tell me at dinner one time about a dinner partner that would not let her husband talk.  He didn't like that.  I can see why!  I know my husband does not like it when I do that.

Rule:  Let everyone have their turn to talk...even make it an invisible game in your mind.  By that I mean you are the only one that knows about the game and the conversation is passed around the room by you without anyone being the wiser. This technique will make you more aware of what you are doing.

How interesting are you?

On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the high and 1 the low, how do you rate yourself.  Are you interesting or not.  The balancing act between being too interesting and the perfect listener is a delicate one.  Don't fall over!

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If you are not a follower, please sign up.  Did you find anything of value in this post?  Twitter or Facebook would love to hear about it!

I am currently reading John Adams.  I love it!  Are you interested in that?

Related articles

• An encounter with Russell Kirsch, inventor of the world's first internally programmable computer (boingboing.net)

When Bloggers Meet: Taking a Risk

Welcome to our beautiful valley!

I had a wonderful experience this last week: a "leap of faith" turn into a friendship.  It just doesn't get much better than that. Meeting new people as we grow older can be hard.  We find that, when we begin to move outside our "work life" comfort zone, we don't have that instant commonality of experience.

Through some serendipitous unlikelihood I was invited to share six days of my life with two other fellow bloggers. These are people I had never been acquainted with before. I only knew them online. It was a risk to say the least.  When a fellow Portland blogger, Galen Pearl, suggested that we should invite fellow blogger Bob Lowry and his wife to come and visit our beautiful city, I didn't hesitate at all. I knew Bob from his blog and it is funny how reading another person's words almost daily will make you feel as though you know them.  I knew Galen from her blog and her personal description in the sidebar. It wasn't until my husband and I were dropping Bob and his wife to pick up a car rental at the end of their visit that I realized what a chance we had all taken. Bob traveled from Phoenix on a plane and left his life in our hands.  Galen and I visited over tea and came up with an itinerary  and the rest is history. I am still amazed.

So the meeting new friends risk has been on my mind for the last few days. What was it about the three of us that made this work? Galen is a world traveler, a college professor in a past life. She is smart, articulate and well loved by her circle of commenting friends. Bob is a retired radio consultant in private business for many years. He has built his blog in just a few years and is very well known and successful at this venture. His wife is an educated graphic artist. My husband is a retired school administrator and I am a blog writer that spent the last few years of her working career teaching kindergartners.  We are very different yet I think the fact that we took the gamble on friendship and the risk paid off for us tells something about us. Taking a risk is just part of our personalities. Maybe that is why we found so much to talk about. We are three very lucky people.

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Oregon Backroads...all roads lead to Vernonia

There is a standing joke here in the northwest corner of Oregon that all roads lead to Vernonia. I don't why that is so because let me tell you Vernonia is not the cultural center of the western world.  The small community lays claim to the only hardware store I know of that sells liquor and has a big sign in front to prove it.  Hardware and Liquor Store it says proudly.  I don't know about you but in my world power tools and liquor should not be combined even in a sentence.  But there it is...right at the end of main street in Vernonia.

vernonia-ore.gov

When you are traveling west toward the Pacific Ocean you can start in the center of Portland and make the decision which way you want to go...north along the Columbia River or a little further south on the Sunset Highway.  Either way you are going to see signs sending you to Vernonia.  It is just weird.  The little community has a main street about three blocks long, the beautiful Nahalem River runs just at the edge of town and every lawn is cut to the perfect length.  Driving over this back road north and south through the coast range is one of the most delightful drives you can make. Even though the logging industry has scalped many of the ridges bare there are miles of lush fern laden rain forest to satisfy anyone's need for green.  I suppose a person should go that way before there is nothing left but stumps on every hillside because a great deal of the land is owned by the logging industry.

So where is Vernonia? Well I think it is in the middle of everywhere.  From Portland it is halfway to the coast.  From the coast it is halfway to Portland.  From the Columbia River it is halfway to the Sunset Highway. From the Sunset it is halfway to four places along the Columbia.  A road from Vernonia north can take you to Claskinie, another to St. Helens,  yet another to Ranier, or  yet another to Scappose.  Yes there are four different roads because it is true.  Here in northwest Oregon all roads lead to and from Vernonia.

So there you have it.  Another backroad drive with a hardware/liquor store thrown in for good measure.

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More backroad stories:

Backroads in Oregon...let's go to the drive-in!
Fall Colors in Oregon Wine Country...Red Ridge Farms
Backroads near Portland, Oregon

MIX Portland's Magazine of Food and Drink...Must have!!!

A description of Pok Pok Thai Restaurant was in the last MIX magazine recognized as having a great patio.  The Oregonian voted it the restaurant of year in 2007  Image via Wikipedia

THEOREGONIAN NEWSPAPER

    The Oregonian, Oregon's newspaper, is surviving as it always has.  It is delivered to doors in communities throughout the state.  I lived in Eastern Oregon from 1941 to 1959 and the paper came to our door even then.  We used to have two Oregon newspapers...one Democrat and one Republican.  If you went to visit a home and saw the newspaper on the couch you would know where their political sentiment were.   The Oregonian was the Democratic publication and The Journal the Republican.  The Oregonian's owner bought The Journal newspaper in 1961 much to the disgust of it's loyal readers.  After publishing both papers for several years, the Journal fell out of favor and the state was left with one major newspaper.  

     In a time when newspapers are closing their doors completely, the Oregonian has morphed into a new entity...while the print edition is still delivered to our door, an online version called OregonLive.com allows us to stay abreast of news all day.  There is no charge for OregonLive.com so they must depend on advertisers to stay up an running.

MIX MAGAZINE

    For the last year or so they have been printing a magazine called MIX Portland's Magazine of Food+Drink. The promotion that the Oregonian has done for the magazine has been, I think, nothing short of genius.  In our trendy neighborhood, the magazine was delivered at our door by some mysterious person at no cost.  I don't know who else got it but our local grocery carried the magazine on it's racks.  Then it came in the mail for several months.  This last month it actually was included in our newspaper.  This magazine is not one big advertising puddle of nothing like so many city magazine are.  I keep each issue and will subscribe to the magazine now because I simply cannot do without it!
     The last issue had a list of places to eat and drink with outdoor patio seating...isn't that what we are all looking for in the summer.  We keep it close at hand for reference.    It also included recipes for salads that made you want to lick the pages.  One recipe went like this:

The Smokery stall at the Saturday Portland Farmers Market sells an insanely delicious smoked salmon that's good all by itself on crackers, or in a salad with whatever produce looks best that week -- including fennel, cucumber, or in this case, green beans and cherry tomatoes.

• 1/2 pound green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch lengths
• 1 15-ounce can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/4 cup pitted kalamata olives, chopped
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh chives
• 6 ounces smoked salmon, broken into bite-size pieces
• 1 teaspoon garlic, mashed to a paste with the side of a chef's knife
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Add the green beans and cook until they turn bright green and are crisp-tender, about 1 minute. Drain the beans and immediately put them in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Drain and pat dry with paper towels.

Combine the green beans, cannellini beans, olives, tomatoes, chives and salmon in a large serving bowl. In a small bowl, whisk the garlic and red wine vinegar together. Slowly whisk in the oil. Add the vinaigrette to the salad, season with salt and pepper and toss gently with your hands. Serve at room temperature.
-- Ivy Manning

     I could only think that even if I didn't want to make the salad, which I do, I would want to make a trip to the Portland Saturday Farmer Market to buy that smoked salmon.  MIX has made the little city feel very intimate.  
      If you are from out of town you can go to the OregonLive.com website for the magazine and get a lot of great ideas for recipes or even a future a future visit.
      I  need to go now...the Sunday paper is calling...I love big paper day.  I will read all that cool Sunday stuff that we all enjoy so much.  I hope you find the information helpful or just interesting.

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Oregon Brews Festival, Resturants...a day in Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon, July 25, 2009
The Oregon Brewers Festival is in town.

Portland, Oregon is notorious for the number of "brew pubs" in it's metro area. When doing a search on google, I got over 1600 hits. So when the Brew Fest comes to town it is indeed a very BIG DEAL!!! After all with 80 different brews, Mt. Hood on one side and the Portland skyline on the other, how can you miss.

Vendors from around the country set up camp on the Willamette River water front in huge tents and Portlanders give them just what they want...a lot of attention and waves of shouting from tent to tent! Families come and set up camp along the fence that separates the water front walking path from the grounds. Admission is free and EVERYONE is carded as they enter. Small children are admitted...I don't know what they do about families with older children.

Portland, being the place that it is, provides activities for the children in Root Beer Tent where tattoos are painted on, a water table is set up and warnings about the dangers of alcohol are featured on a large display. Donation were taken at the tent to provide schooling for homeless children.


So we went with our son and two granddaughter, found 5 folding chairs, moved them into the shade under a tree and whiled the afternoon away sipping and visiting. Believe it or not the Acacia Beer was a great favorite with very long lines. I didn't take a count but I am thinking that the older crowd thought this was the find of the century...beer @ acacia berries!!! The crowds were huge (70,000 in 2008) in years past and I see no reason why the 22nd Annual Festival should not be the same.

We started the day with lunch at Goose Hollow Pub located at the base of the West Hills. The old pub was once owned by our famous mayor, Bud Clark and remains a mainstay on the Portland scene. Then we ended the day at Dan and Louis's Oyster Bar. This also a favorite of ours and has been since our 45 year old son was 9 or 10 years old. (It has been in existence since 1907.) We love to go with him when he is in town. The restaurant in located in the down and dirty Skidmore district almost under the Burnside Bridge. I can honestly say that it has not changed one bit since our first visit all those years ago. Bums line the sidewalks and people step over and around them without a thought. I even had one man fold up his (profane?) sign when he saw me coming with my 6 year old granddaughter. We exchanged greetings and I followed the crowd up the sidewalk. Outdoor tables are featured at almost every restaurant this time of year...we love the whole scene.

Incidentally, most people are using our public transportation for this event. Parking downtown is very expensive and hard to find. Our Max line is becoming more and more popular all the time.

I just thought you would all want to know what is going on here in town. Have a wonderful weekend.

b

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