I've been very bad, I know...

Well Christmas break happened, and I sure as heck didn't venture anywhere near Portland. Then the new term started and I've been driving instead of taking the train. The train takes at least an hour and a half, which is what it takes me to drive on the WORST traffic days. Plus when I get out in the afternoon, I can get home in roughly 25 minutes. It's hard to justify sitting on the train for an hour and a half when I know I can be home in 25 minutes! So I'm sorry, the freak sightings have dwindled to almost nothing.

I do have a good one to report, albeit belatedly. We went out for a fancy dinner for our anniversary in December. We decided to be politically incorrect, and went somewhere where foie gras was served, because we had never had it, so we ended up at a yupptastic French restaurant in Portland. The foie gras was...eh. It was like eating bacon fat I thought, the texture was just....wrong. But as we were sitting there a woman comes in with a very interesting looking orange stole around her neck and sits at the bar....hmmm...

Now, let me tell you, dressing up in Portland isn't quite like dressing up in other major cities, not even Seattle. Nice jeans will pretty much get you in anywhere here without a second glance, even the expensive trendy places. So an orange stole, while odd, isn't anything too out of the ordinary for here. I'm kind of observing lady with the stole at the bar, the stole looks like it may have seen better days, kind of mangy looking. But wait! She's taking it off and looping it over the back of her chair! It's not a stole silly! It's a freakin stuffed monkey! Duh! Remember those freakishly long stuffed monkeys from the 1980s that would hang on doors? That's what it was! I guess that is Portland's version of fur??

We had a nice dinner, because hey lets admit it, a freak sighting always improves the evening. But we had to sit at big communal tables that seem to be in fashion at trendy places here. So help me, I will never go back there because of it. We had to sit next to picky yuppies who were determined to shoot their mouth off about how important they were, which of course inspired Jeff to start talking about things like, hunting, knives, and pick up trucks. Sigh. It's hard being a redneck with high class tastes sometimes.