Killing Time in Portland

Yesterday in Portland, after dropping off the cats at the clinic, on a whim, I took an off ramp labeled OMSI/Zoo.  I remembered both were across the river just up a hill and that there is a pleasant arboretum up there, and trails.  I wanted to eat lunch there and take a walk.  However, the signs kept taking me down strange streets on the east side of the river.  And then I was suddenly in the OMSI parking lot.  OMSI is no longer up by the zoo!  I wonder how many decades behind I am on that news.    I walked along the river boardwalk then, watched Dragon Boat teams practice and tried to stay alive.  The bike riders up there act like the boardwalk is their personal high speed bike race highway.  To hell with pedestrians.  It was scary!  After watching Portlandia and experiencing some Portland bike riders, I stereo type them all as the radical rude bike rider on Portlandia.  Sorry to the kind non killer bike riders out there!

I also tried to eat lunch at Burgerville, an Oregon chain, that serves real strawberry shakes, not fake flavored shakes.  I usually get a small shake, if I'm up with cats, since it is close to the clinic, and I love them.  However, their parking lot was crammed to over flowing.  There were tourists everywhere, coming over from the nearby hotels.  I gave up, after several go arounds of the block (it's on MLK Blvd.) and searched for something to eat anywhere. I had almost no money with me and had not brought a lunch. Neither had I eaten breakfast.  In the end, when picking up the cats at the clinic, I grabbed a couple of cookies off a plate someone had brought in for volunteers.  I had been unable to find a grocery store to buy a piece of fruit or something small and inexpensive like that.  I also have not been to a grocery store to get food for some time.  So I'm out of almost everything here at my place.  Have been eating rice, and broccoli with onions, mainly, then the usual hot cereal mornings.

It isn't easy where I live to find affordable decent food.  There's Mega Foods, which has about the worst looking meat you could ever see and specializes in severely freezer burned chicken! I went there last week hoping to find some chicken to make cat food for Feather.  Too expensive and awful looking. They claim now to have a huge bulk foods selection in bins, but you would not believe the price!!  Outrageous!  There's Grocery Outlet.  While they are cheaper on a small number of items their produce is limited, expensive and terrible and the store is mostly prepackaged food.   Like most grocery stores nowadays.

Then there are the expensive three:  Safeway, Albertsons and Fred Meyer, beyond my budget capacity.  And besides, it kills me to pay four times what the same item would cost at Winco.  It's like burning money.  But I don't get over to Winco much, so lately, the pickings here in my place, as far as food goes, are often very sparse.   Hope to get some things growing soon in a garden.

Dragon boat team members strain on the paddles.

Display sub outside OMSI on the Willamette.  You can pay to take a tour.

OMSI now sits along the Willamette on the Portland east side water front.  I thought it was still up by the zoo!

Dragon Boat teams practice on the Willamette Friday.

Sky high tram, takes people from somewhere near the Lloyd Center Mall across the river and up the hill to OHSU.

Deaf Miss Daisy loves to snooze on my pillow.  She gets very cranky if I try to move her, so I can use it.

Lately Gretal has been caught playing, with all sorts of cat toys.  She really is feeling better!

Posey is beautiful, soft, and loving.

Old gal Electra, second oldest cat here, catches some sun rays from my bed this morning.