Today’s shout-out goes to Surprises. Despite being a planner—a must plan every detail of everything all at once without even meaning to kind of planner—I LOVE surprises, especially when those surprises include someone else planning things out for once and giving me the rare but lovely gift of spontaneity. Which makes the new tradition Comet and I have of alternating surprise date-nights absolutely brilliant. I plan a date specifically steered towards Comet (the last one entailed gourmet hot dogs from Dog eat Dawg at Good Food Here on Belmont, some Lord of the Rings Pinball and a movie at the Hollywood Theater complete with snuck in VooDoo Doughnuts for snacks) and then the next time its on him to plan something for me. Lucky for us, we love virtually all of the same things and live in portland, so we have an endless supply of cool date ideas.

It was Comet’s turn to plan this weekend and the night was perfect. First, meandering through Powells on Hawthorne, one of my favorite past-times, which was completed by getting some great pacific northwest field guides for both of us to read/ to prepare more for Outdoor School. Next, it was dessert-first (the only way to do it) at Swirl on Hawthorne. I had a glorious combination of strawberry and chocolate frozen yogurt with strawberries & blackberries, hot fudge and chocolate peanut butter cups on top. Comet, a fro-yo virgin on the other hand, went a little crazy with the freedom of self-serve toppings and had praline pecan with fruity pebbles, captain crunch, graham crackers pieces, marshmallows, and marshmallow sauce…

Next we went to one of our favorite of Portland’s gigantic repertoire of independent/last run/ cheap movie theaters, The Academy on Stark, and saw Tangled, which was REALLY charming actually. No, really, it was. Really. I swear!

 The evening ended at Sub Rosa, a lovely self-proclaimed ” friendly neighborhood joint” on  SE Clinton. It was casual, pretty, warm, and full of delicious pastas and pizzas.

Overall, the whole date was a great, and filled with reminders of favorite things like; southeast pdx, dusk, Disney movies, books, berries, chocolate, pasta and comet!

The shout-out for yesterday is split in seven (all Voldermort style);

1. Hearing news that Comet and I both got the jobs we wanted!!! Come spring time we get to work in Outdoor Ed like we have wanted to forever, we get to work at the same place, and we get to work for a friend from summer camp! Nothing beats that kind of good news. (More on these jobs later).

2. A celebration dinner at the amazing Foster Burger. It’s two minutes from my house (literally), and was named one of the top ten new burger joints in the US in Bon Appetite Magazine, which made me worry for a while that I would only like it because it would be really convenient too and for the hype. Lucky for me, last night proved it really is that good. A cheeseburger with grilled onions, french fries to dip in the best ranch ever and  half an amazing coffee milkshake later, I left fully satisfied and happy to have such a good restaurant in the neighborhood.

3. Coffee milkshakes. Icecream and coffee in one. Need I say more?

4. Good friends to celebrate good news with.

5. Playing Poker for the first time in ages (and remembering that I kind of loooove playing poker)  with friends who have fabulous Poker names (getting to say “Show us what you got Tampa!” is just plain fun). 

6. Finding out that the aforementioned Tampa was taught Sex-Ed from a nun in the eighth grade and the hilarity that all that those stories provide.

7. And finally, the Portland Police, for driving home the completley incoherent drunk girl who was leaning/sleeping/swaying against my roommate’s car as we tried to go home last night. And for the record, leaving a friend’s house at 3:00am where it is all dark and foggy to see a shadowy shape of a person leaning on your car who doesn’t notice you walk up is just creepy.