Favorites 9.11.14

Puppies: Obvi, right? But the the way they wiggle into your lap and happily thrash about there, gnawing on your knuckle with pin-sharp baby teeth—it's what should be in the dictionary under the entry titled "joy."

Oat milk: I did a tour of alternative milks recently—brandishing hemp milk with coffee, pouring rice beverage over cereal, dipping cookies into iced-cold almond milk, all before encountering oat milk. Did you know this was a thing? It's the best! Oats are velvety rich and naturally sweet—no need for added "cane sugar" or other nonsense like that.

Pimm's lemonade. Lemonade and the gin-based liqueur known as "Pimm's," plus cucumber, plus mint, plus orange slices. Tuck this cocktail away in your hat for the next languid sunny afternoon.

Anthony Bourdain's new show on CNN. Good ol' Tony—he's kind of a chauvinist asshole but that's what you end up loving about him.

How To Get Hitched In The Mountains

The truth? The truth is that we're all inextricable romantics given the right moment/situation. Even the cynics. Even the hard of heart. Given the right moment/situation, there we'll all be at some point with hands gripped over hearts, big tears being blinked away, et cetera.

Oddly enough, a wedding isn't always that moment/situation. But! The wedding I went to this weekend was.

I watched Tricia and Cairo get married in the old fashioned way—outside in the fresh air in front of all of their people under the high-country sun that cast long shadows in the late afternoon.

First, we all sat in wooden chairs and talked and laughed. Then, a quiet fell on the crowd. A wind whispering of fall set the aspen leaves clicking. Finally, out came Trish to the tune of a string band, looking, in her pale dress and veil, almost exactly like a flower. Right there in the meadow, both her and Cairo read some lines they’d written about each other—about magical first acquaintances and perfect matches, about holding each other up (most especially in tough times), about what exactly it feels like to be in love.

The rest of the night was a blur of Pimms and caramel cupcakes. And other things that cause dizziness the following morning but which are, at the time, consumed with the utmost noble intent of celebration.

Hooray for love!

Pretty Trish.

Griz, getting a snapshot of that rock!

This pic may not communicate it, but the dance floor = bumping, all night long.

Waterfall Wanders

Heat. Haze. Big roving rain clouds. Trails carved out of cliffsides. Waterfalls that drop loudly into deep, green pools. This is the seduction of Oregon in late August. Last weekend, Kelly, Marsha, and I were its victims.

After dealing with real-life bullshit all morning, we gathered at my house midday and drove east into the Columbia Gorge—for that is the province of waterfall hikes. On this day, we chose Eagle Creek Trail, a pretty famous Oregon hike that leads you ramblingly into the wilds by following the Eagle Creek itself.

Now, this trail is part of the Pacific Crest Trail, and as such, we passed tons of "PCTers" on it; all of them friendly, all of them covered in dirt—reeking of moss, earth, and abiding body odor, all of them heading north to Canada as we forged south toward Punchbowl Falls. In comparison, we were just lowly day hikers, carrying—all carefree-like—nothing but water bottles in our hands.

Seattle Trip Top 6

• Pit-stopping in the indie-rock capitol of Olympia, Washington for the very first time (!!!!) and meeting one Mike Cummins (older brother to Temple and Matt!!!!). Also, randomly purchasing an exquisite ceramic bowl hand-made by this Northwest original.

• Coming around that one corner on I-5 where you all-the-sudden see the city of Seattle for the first time—the city and the Sound and the sun gleaming crazily off the windows and the water.

• Skating Marginal Way, just fooling around all by myself while the big men talked and drank beer and the birds flapped their wings.

• Starvingly finding a Greek restaurant and eating incendiary fresh pita bread sprinkled with big chunks of salt.

• Drinking a tall whiskey soda at a yuppy bar with my guy.

• Walking through the rows of vegetables on Beacon Hill, no one in sight, skyscrapers in the distance, a cool breeze whispering of fog and falling leaves.

Summer Truths

I made it! By which I mean, I managed to navigate the full mania of summer without injury, insult, or neurotic breakdown. I attended all the skate sessions and barbecues, I swam in all the rivers. In general, I tried to do EVERYTHING, because that's the spirit of summer.

But! As August softly ends like a feather floating to the ground, a quietness is settling over things around here.

Don't hold your hands over your ears and pretend (la, la, la!) that summer's not over. It is (almost), but that's okay.