Friday, August 17, 2018

he drinks a whiskey drink, he drinks a vodka drink, he drinks a lager drink, he drinks a cider drink

Portland really is a mecca for hipsters. I can't describe how weird it is - like a theme park designed to perfectly emulate the hipster experience, built over a potentially seedy underbelly of decadence and decay. Today I saw:

- a guy with a manbun and what may have been a fake English accent saying that he 'did Ramadan in solidarity', when it really sounds like he's just embraced the intermittent fasting fad that is sweeping the online healthy-eating communities

- a woman loading two diapered alpacas into a van

- a guy from San Francisco who said he'd gotten his hat in Berkeley, where it had been blessed by a shaman

- Adit

My day was pretty delightful, all in all. I didn't sleep that well last night, so when I finally rolled out of bed I was desperate for coffee. Chandlord and I went to a coffee shop (where we saw Ramadan guy), and waited an unusual amount of time for our food (which it turns out was likely because the proprietor believes in cooking eggs until they are rubberized). Then we came home, I took a shower, and then I did some day job stuff until it was time to transition into wedding stuff.

When that transition happened, Adit and I were all in - Chandlord stayed back to work, but we picked up Santy Claude and took her and a bunch of wine out to the wedding venue. The wedding venue is a working farm with a bunch of alpacas and llamas; strangely enough, that's entirely unrelated from the woman I saw loading alpacas into a van. Also, it's clear that the owner would rather be a farmer than a wedding planner. But we got things into a good place despite everything (and despite some conversations taking an hour when they could have happened in five minutes).

Then we drove back to Portland and met up with Chandlord at an outdoor area with a bunch of permanent food trucks. We also went to Stumptown Coffee, which is a requirement in Portland. Then we came back to the house and took care of a bunch of stuff, and then Claude, Ayla and I made a trip to Michael's to get a bunch of last minute decor-type stuff.

We probably should have done work after that, but instead Claudia, Adit, Chandlord, Ayla and I walked to dinner. On the way, we passed a dive bar called Claudia's, which required us to take a shot of cheap tequila (por supuesto). Then we went to Pok Pok, which is renowned as the place to eat in Portland. The line was 90min long, which meant we could have spent some quality time getting to know the guy whose hat had been blessed by a shaman, but instead we went down the street and had drinks and snacks at Pok Pok's sister bar.

When we finally got a table, though, it was worth the wait - the food was great (especially the chicken wings that Claude and I shared - possibly the best wings I've ever had). The company was okay too. And now I really need to sleep if I'm going to be on my game tomorrow - goodnight!

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