Pig Cheek Hash Available Here

Pig Cheek Hash Available Here
Originally uploaded by Rozanne.

One of the best things about Project 365 is everything I'm discovering right in my own neighborhood, like this restaurant that serves, among other things, pig cheek hash (or maybe it was billed as pork cheek hash...but same difference). Note of irony--it's right across the street from a nonprofit called In Defense of Animals that is dedicated to protecting the rights, welfare, and habitat of animals. I don't imagine there's much love lost between the restaurant and the nonprofit.

Doll Face

We were being tourists in our own city today. This woman is real, but she's pretending not to be. She stands stock still (very difficult, I'm sure) as people mill all around her. If you drop some money in the hat in front of her, she comes to life and blows you a kiss. I have to report, however, some shameful behavior. One young woman--with a huge smirk on her face--walked up to Doll Face here and dropped a rose in the hat--a tired, wilted, brown-around-the-edges rose that didn't even have a stem anymore. What kind of crappy cheap-ass behavior is that? To Doll Face's credit, she "came to life" and blew the smirker a kiss. That's show biz, I guess.

Head in the Clouds

We hiked up into the clouds today. You can do that if you live in Portland. And it's not even that hard to do--all it entails is a drive out to the Dog Mountain Trail on an iffy-weather day like today and a willingness to climb 2800 vertical feet up into the atmosphere. Start hiking up, up, up straight into the glorious wildflower meadows. Keep going uphill, as the weather goes downhill. The wind will whip up and soon your head will be in the clouds.

Things will start looking and sounding like this.

It's great!!!!!!! That is, as long as you are fully prepared with multiple waterproof and windproof layers and gloves as I (for once) was. I'll bet the temp up at the summit was about 45, with the wind blowing 25 to 30 mph--so pretty ding-dong cold if you weren't prepared. There were a few people up there in shorts. They didn't stick around long.