{"id":4949,"date":"2011-11-04T11:22:25","date_gmt":"2011-11-04T18:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=4949"},"modified":"2011-11-04T11:22:25","modified_gmt":"2011-11-04T18:22:25","slug":"ho-portland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/4949","title":{"rendered":"Ho! Portland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning Portland. Thanks for welcoming me. You are\u00a0one of my favorite cities!\u00a0I can’t wait to see what you have in store today.<\/p>\n

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Always waaaaaaaaaaaaaay ahead of the environmental curve, Portland’s taxis are about as healthy as the granny smith apples above\u00a0… because they’re all hybrid Prius. How cool is that?!<\/p>\n

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My daughter, son-in-law, and I were in town for meetings regarding our\u00a0organic towel line. Get this. Fred Meyer stores say they can’t keep their organic towel shelves stocked, the towels fly out the door so fast. Be still my heart.<\/p>\n

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Portland is also home to Powell’s Books, the largest independent used and new bookstore in the world. They have an extensive collection of out-of-print rare titles as well. Now my heart is really pounding!<\/p>\n

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Ah, but to be a\u00a0book-reading, couch potato in the well-known Pearl District, if only for a day. I was in heaven no, Portland\u2014next best thing.<\/p>\n

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The Piano Bike Kid<\/a>\u00a0in front of Powell’s.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0Bike sculptures on the street corners? Only in a trendy place like Portland.<\/p>\n

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Okay, my good friend, Alyson O\u00fcten, recently challenged me to try some fish eggs (caviar)<\/a>. Okay, but I had a bigger challenge in mind. Last year, I watched a show about a mother and daughter who ate sushi for lunch. Within 24 hours, the daughter was in a hospital on her death bed, the victim of a parasite (known for shutting down your bodily functions) found in the uncooked fish she had eaten.<\/p>\n

Ah, what you DON’T know, can’t hurt you.<\/p>\n

A big fan of sushi, I\u00a0needed to confront my fears head-on. What better way than to order a dish called “death by sushi” topped\u00a0with fish eggs.<\/p>\n

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Now my heart is really pounding.<\/p>\n

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You go first Lucas.<\/p>\n

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Megan? I’m jumping if you’re jumping.<\/p>\n

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I’m here. I didn’t die.<\/p>\n

Back to the Portland airport. Awesome place. Have you ever seen a parking garage covering in green living plants? The valet told me the greenery isn’t just any ivy, the garage is covered in roses that bloom fantastically every spring. Only in Portland, land of idealism!<\/p>\n

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I beelined it to my favorite place in the Portland airport, a baby version of Powell’s books. I picked up a copy of\u00a0Cutting for Stone<\/em> by Abraham Verghese. Stay tuned.\u00a0I’m half way through it.<\/p>\n

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Good morning Portland. Thanks for welcoming me. You are\u00a0one of my favorite cities!\u00a0I can’t wait to see what you have in store today. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[23,46,109,275,330,526,568,714,720,859,893],"class_list":["post-4949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gift_for_gab","tag-abraham-verghese","tag-alyson","tag-books","tag-environment","tag-fred-meyer","tag-lucas","tag-meg","tag-portland","tag-powells-books","tag-sushi","tag-the-piano-bike-kid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4949\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}