hiking in the mossy splendor

Hello everyone!

I had a nice mellow weekend. Friday night I went out to sushi with Elaine and Dave. Normally we order too much but we finally ordered a reasonable amount and finished it all. We drank hot sake and wondered what had happened to the usual music at Ichidai. Normally they play really calm, quiet music that has the occasional animal sound (chirping birds, mooing cows etc). It's very serene. On Friday night they were playing Christmas music! booooo. I don't want to eat sushi and listen to the Beach Boys sing Christmas songs. No E No!

After dinner we went back to their house and watched Memento which I hadn't seen in ages. It's funny how much that movie STILL makes my brain hurt. When I got home that night I picked up our mail from the front porch. One of the letters was in a plain envelope and had clearly been written by me...addressed to myself. I stood staring at the letter for some time trying to figure this out. Having just seen Memento is was rather unsettling (the main character was always writing notes to himself and learned to rely on his own handwriting). Here I am with a letter addressed by myself and I have NO MEMORY what it's about. Strange...so I open it up. It was a letter I had to write in a racism seminar I'd taken in May through the college. They said they would mail them to us in a few months and of course I'd forgotten all about it. It was a surreal moment looking at the letter though.

Saturday I ran a bunch of errands. I bought a bunch more envelopes and lots of card stock paper to make cards. I hung out at Elaine's for a while and browsed on Flickr before going to the store. I bought some things for gina (gum, popcorn, flowers). She's on her first week of no smoking so I want to support her hard work. She's very determined to quit and I have faith that she will. Gina came home and we decided to go out for some dinner. We went to The Barley Mill (non-smoking pub/restaurant) on Hawthorne for dinner and beers. We played a game of Sorry while we were waiting for our food and finished it up after we were done eating. We stopped for some coffee at Starbucks and then went back to Gina's house. I did some laundry and we watched tv and had a mellow night at home.

Sunday I went over to Gina's around 11. We went to the cafe near our house and had bagel sandwiches and coffee. It's a cute little coffee shop that I'll definitely be frequenting more often. We then drove out to the Gorge for a hike. We started at the trail next to Horsetail Falls. The trail climbs steeply for about half a mile and then you come to Ponytail Falls. I love that waterfall so much because the trail goes behind the falls. I love walking down to the water's edge and looking up at the water shooting out from the rocks above (like a ponytail!). There's a great viewpoint that overlooks the Gorge. It was amazing to see the snowy cliffs on the Washington side across the river. At our elevation though it was all green mossiness and ferns. We continued on the trail to Oneonta Gorge which is the skinniest gorge I've EVER seen. There's a small waterfall and a brige there with a lovely view to the creek below. We took the side trail up to Triple Falls where we sat for a moment and enjoyed the view. From there it was an easy down hill hike back down to the historic highway and back to our car.

Dave and Gina and I went to Stark St Pizza for dinner where we had beers and a salad and a pizza. I guess the place is a neighborhood institution but it was my first time there.

So that was my weekend! Please let me know what you did and how you are!

xoxo,
carolyn