prelude

sunday morning nicholas and i had egg in the hole for breakfast and started making a list of what we should do for the rest of the day, since it's my only day off and we've been talking so much about driving somewhere. it was very cold and very gray and hailed though (only for about a minute, but still) so we decided to not go to the gorge but to maybe drive to vancouver, since i hadn't been yet. we got ready, i of course wore a gigantic button-up, which is all i've been wearing lately, we went to the library to drop some things off, and we went to the hollywood trader joe's to pick up some chocolate for the brownies we planned on baking for nate. i brought in only 1 shopping bag, since the intention was to buy chocolate and only chocolate, but of course we came out $50 later with snacks for the drive and wine and other yummy things that can be found only there. then we got on the 5, which was unusually traffic-y, and we drove into washington with the sole goal of finding a nice place near the river where we could park and look at the water and eat our snacks, but we didn't look at a map or get vague directions or anything, so we drove around vancouver (which is really just a small town) and drove through an elvis presley-type of army base and somehow ended up in the rich neighborhood and drove past homes that you wouldn't think existed outside of southern california and drove a bunch more and did eventually see the river and the boats but decided to head back to portland. once we were back we went to east side deli, which is the best place to get gigantic delicious sandwiches for very cheap, and i got my usual except this time with vegan meat, and we went home to get our bikes and jackets and rode to the waterfront because it was So Nice Out, and when we got there we found a bench that was directly across from where we watched fireworks, on the west side, on 4th of july, and there were a lot of people out, and we ate our sandwiches and watched the bridges being drawn up because a very tall sail boat was going down the river. my sandwich wasn't as good as i hoped, as the meat tasted more like beef jerky than anything else, but it was good anyway, and when we were done with our sandwiches we biked back home and sat on the sofas with sammy, with the big windows open and exposed, and with all of the sunlight left in the day pouring in on us, and then we chopped chocolate, and baked brownies, double-broiler and all, and they were excellent.