PDXOXO

Portland, you are sometimes small and sometimes weird and sometimes rainy and definitely not for everyone, but I have fallen hard for you.

It's still morning on Sunday, but even if I was at work right now, I could say that this weekend was completely rad. But I've still got all morning, and then later on, I've got 2 vegan potlucks, people! Of course, I have no idea what I'm making...

So Friday, I went to Disjecta to see the Sprockettes benefit show. The Sprockettes are an all-female mini-bike dance group here in Portland.

lookit!

My friend and neighbor, Zoe, is a Sprockette (and I learned later, a lot of people I see on the street all the time are Sprockettes, too) and my friend Sare is their photographer. Once they started, Sare went to the "no zone" where I'm sure she got much better pictures then what I got.

this one sprockette has mad hoola hoopin skills!


There really seems to be a lot of synchronized dancing in this town! Jen's dream! (mine too!)


Kazum, also from Portland, danced to "Rio" (!)


This double dutch group was way fun


I was kinda tired and left early, so I missed Canadian bike dance teams the B.C. Clettes and the Brakes!

Saturday morning, I woke up and made more earrings. I'm officially out of earwires now, but I've kept going, just waiting to add them when they come (thanks Michelle!) Then we went to the Farmer's Market! There's still all kinds of great vegetables and fruit, but since we weren't going home after, we needed to stick to shelf-stable things. Here's our booty:

from top: small wonders (the best spaghetti squash with a pdx vegan cult following (in other words, both joanna and jess like it, too!), braeburn apples, red curry squashes, garlic and australian crescent potatoes from one of my favorite farmers at the market, yellow carrots from the root lady, and red potatoes from someone new to me. I also got brussel sprouts, but they were already in the fridge!


After the farmer's market, we walked to the Vegan Holiday Festival!

Of course it was great! Filled to the brim with vegans! Most vegans I know were there so it was just as much a social event as anything else. But there were all kinds of tables of food (with tons of samples!) and crafts and books (I bought a cookbook!) and other good stuff. Went to a cooking demo with the chef and owner of Blossoming Lotus and then a talk by Howard Lyman.

(this is a terrible picture)


I couldn't stay at the talk very long cause I was feeling antsy and not wanting to sit so I went back downstairs to chill with the vegans. Even met up with Sare's friend, Blue, that I met at the Sprockettes event the night before. Of course, she's vegan, too!

Came back home and hung out with Aaron and relaxed after the intense socializing and eating. Then I went back out to the co-op cause it was member appreciation day! Aaron was wondering if it was going to be a big party in there, and it sort of was, as I ran into Sare, Hayley, Michelle, K, and a bunch of other neighborhood types while I shopped. We stocked up on some staples like lentils and split peas and nuts and seeds and flour and nutritional yeast, etc. Cooked a small wonder and ate it with reduced tomatoes and nutritional yeast and salt and I was flouting on a cloud the rest of the evening. We didn't make it out to very new friend Anna's party, but we were feeling warm and full and happy.

Today, I hope to make some more jewelry (and perhaps try to sew), then start to make food for Joanna's potluck at 3pm (yay!) Then there's the Northwest Veg potluck at 6! How in the world am I going to swing that?

edited to add: Oh my god! I am so fulllllll!
edited to also add: We made a crazy amount of soba noodles with peanut sauce and red pepper, cucumber, scallions, and black sesame seeds over green salad and divided it between two large serving bowls!