#PDXNPC

We were on our final day, by which time we had just given up on searching out new experiences. We went to Elmer's for breakfast. Elmer's is a west coast chain. The food is decent, standard American cuisine. Meals that you can get anywhere in the country. No better or worse really. It is the kind of restaurant that your boring aunt and uncle would treat themselves to for their anniversary. That's what sort of dire straights we were in, as my two foodie companions were

After Elmer's we went about singing our final note in Portland. Donuts. A high note indeed. Hat ready, let's go!

My suggestion was to visit Voodoo Donuts, a famous Portland standard. I'd been to the Eugene annex in 2013. I'm sure that people out there will roll their eyes and call them overrated. Who fucking cares. You can't overrate donuts. Donuts are a gift from Heaven. They're fried dough covered in sugar or sugary sauce. If that's not your definition of a donut, then you're doing it wrong.

Voodoo donuts made their name in the competitive deep fried dough covered in sugar world by creating concoctions of unusual donut pairings. Donuts with unusual, often breakfast cereal, ingredients. Creations like the triple chocolate donut covered in coco puffs, or the voodoo doll, a jelly filled donut in the shape of a person with a pretzel stake plunged into it's heart. I enjoy the gimmick.

Hey, they also sell a coffin shaped box full of donuts. I don't know for what sort of event anyone would ever require such a good/service, but I do know that If I lived in Portland, I'd buy it at least once. Hell, I'm going to make it a provision that coffin-donuts are to be served at my funeral.

Adam is firmly lodged in the camp where Voodoo Donuts is considered to be rather kitsch. That didn't stop him from buying and enjoying several donuts. But it did compel him to try a couple of the competitors. Who were also good. Because donuts are fucking delicious and difficult to screw up(looking at you Krispy Kreme). So blah blah blah, other donut shops that don't sell coffins full of donuts. Phooey and P'shaw.

When lunch approached, I wanted a burger. I'd been searching google for suggestions the entire trip and settled on a food truck that was described as the best burger in Portland.

I love a good burger and fries, and make a note to try and find a good burger joint in any new town. I settled my hopes on a food truck somewhere on the north side. We jumped back onto the yellow line north in search of lunch and beer.

The foodtrucks were parked in a lot that was owned and operated by a bar. Sweet gig for the owners of that bar. You order food from the trucks and then goto the bar and eat. Lots of food options that require absolutely zero extra work on the part of the landlord. I might have to start my own bar and follow that line of business.

We sashayed on in. Sara and Adam had their own preferences, and I left them to it. I wanted my burger.

And the fuckers were closed. On a Monday. Who closes on a Monday? I guess it makes a little sense, as much as being closed any other day of the week. But Monday closings seems to be common in Portland, and by common, I mean I noticed it twice. Stupid Portland.

I had Korean Fusion instead. Fuck you burger joint! And fumed as I ordered Cider at the bar and enjoyed my liquid happiness. After a while, I began to grow bored and restless with the sitting. I dislike bars. And since Adam was still intent on trying more beer, so we paid up and sallied forth to find a nearby brewery. I think it was Widmer Brothers.

Upon sitting down in the brewery, our server set down several small glasses of beer before us gratus. “Here,” he said, “This is our new award winning brew.” Well, I was buzzed when I walked in and I had finished the beer sample that they gave me, and it was the best beer that I've ever had, hands down. I don't like beer at all. I have tasted scores upon scores of beers to confirm my bias. So I tried this beer too, since it was free and I was buzzed. I liked this beer.

After we got our round, our server returned and said he “The cook saw your shirt, and he'd like his quest.” Yep, I was wearing my NPC shirt.

“Well fuck yeah!” I declared in intoxicated enchantment. “Have yourself a seat!”

“Where to start? Well the first thing the cook is gonna need to do is located and defeat Steven Seagal. Mind you, it's old dilapidated Steve, where he has the evil looking goatee slapped onto his potato shaped head. After that, he should be allowed into the tournament, and here's how that's going to go, he'll be fighting through Eighties action movie heroes, you getting all this down?”

“Sorry, I'm not going to remember all of this.”

“Not to worry, neither will I, but it ain't our quest so not our problem. Anyhow, one by one he's going to take down the action stars until he finally gets to the final boss, Jean Claude Van Dam. Or should I say bosses, Jean Claude Van Dam and Jean Claude Van Dam. They're twins like in that movie that they were in where they played twins. Do you remember.”

“I don't know that...”

“Parent Trap. Jean Claude Van Dam plays his own twin in Parent Trap. They're separated at birth and all that something or other, I'm kinda fuzzy right now. There's a tournament. And your man is going to have to take both of the at the same time.”

“What's all this for?” Asked he.

I shrugged my shoulders. If I knew that I wouldn't be here. Most of that was true. I finally got into the Portland talking to strangers spirit, and all it took was throwing a fair quantity of booze in a short amount of time. Now we see why it's called social lubrication.

The cook saluted me as we left, I returned the salute. #PDXNPC

We filled the remainder of the day with aimless wandering, notable only for the one sidetrip to the airport where we took pictures of the surrounding countryside from the roof of the parking garage.  Several of the surrounding volcanoes were visible.  We took our standard crappy tourist pictures.

Until we finally returned to our hotel room to wait out the rest of the trip.

Dinner was at the Jim Dandy Drive In. Because it was across the street from our hotel and had a cool name. The burgers were good enough. They offered a bacon shake, which Adam of course ordered, but alas they were out of the ingredients. Pork teases. The cook also liked my shirt, and stated as much, because Portland. I was starting to grow used to the quirk of the city,

Portland gifted me with self-discovery and understanding. Before I stepped back on the plane that would take me home, I realized I must be their messiah. And then I was pulled aside once more for TSA to check my bag. Stupid fekking Granola. I had forgotten about it. Fortunately it didn't attract any hippies.

As a note, I ended up with a week's worth of a really nasty case of food poisoning. Don't know where I picked it up, but I was the only one to suffer the Wrath of Lewis and Clarke.

Ah well, I suppose any messiah has to suffer.

Until next time Portland.

Teetotaling no more.

I am/was a lifelong teetotaler. All through college in fact. In my early 20s I would actively avoid any activity where other people would be drinking. Just being there made me uncomfortable. With a good set of friends, I eventually got over that. To be honest, unlike the world concieved in after school specials, nobody ever really directly pressured me to imbibe. I never encountered the apocryphal “Take a swig and be a man!” scene even once. But I guess being a hermit rather limited my exposure to peer pressure.

I hold no real religious convictions against imbibing. My family isn't made up of alcoholics who ruined my childhood with poverty and violence. Maybe the various 'say no to drugs' campaigns that the public school system launched our way was effective.

I mean, after watching the film Death Zones (1975) over and over during my formative years left me with a distaste for buses. Have you ever seen that film? They showed it to us on a yearly basis back in the early to mid-eighties. It scared the hell out of me, to the point that I began to dread the film projector being wheeled into the room. The gist of the film is that buses are dangerous, be careful around buses or they will kill the fuck out of you. They're like giant, yellow, rolling sharks just waiting for children to come within tire's length. And snow/ice? They're in a twisted partnership with the fleet of rolling death to get kids under the tires.

As I grew up in Alaska, and we had a lot of snow, I did my best to keep at least 20 feet from the line of buses that waited outside our school every afternoon when class finally let out. To hell with that shit.

The only movie that jarred my childhood in such a way was Predator, and as I lived in Alaska, where steamy jungles are few, I contrived few worries about being hunted down by a 7 foot tall invisible alien. Moose on the other hand were a common source of danger. But they couldn't turn invisible, nor were they bullet proof.

Fortunately, a Predator driving a school bus has only just occurred to me, which means I will likely be having nightmares tonight.

But yeah, those school filmstrips were brutal.

Then there was the upbringing. Our household wasn't overly strict in a religious sense – aside from the weekly forays into church. Dad was far more devoted to that cause than mom, and his preferred sect is against drugs of all kinds – from caffeine to cocaine. While my dad never drank, my mother is fond of wine(but it has to be from a box, we be classy people yo. Classy.)

Everything else aside, part of why I went the non-drinker route was rebellion. In high school I was the quiet kid who read geeky books(and after high school, and after college, and up until now). I didn't have wild hair or stylish clothes. Reading was how I defined myself. How I set myself apart. I was like Daria, except where she was brilliant and read the classics, I was a dork who preferred Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Many of my cousins drank from a youngish age, as did many of my classmates, it's a part of the culture. You drink to have fun at a party, that's what the adults around you do and you learn from the adults and try to be like them. There is also that expectation that kids will take up drinking on the path to adulthood.

But, that wasn't me. And became more not me after I moved onto college. Sobriety(at times to the point of being nearly militant – damn I bet I was obnoxious) was a part of the personae that I constructed for myself over the years. I new people who had the same response towards eating meat. But I rebelled by being boring. Or mayhaps I'm just boring and am trying to look cool by calling it rebellion.

Probably the latter.

This is sad, as college should be a time where you try new things. But I'm a borderline hermit with some anxiety issues, so the whole 'new experiences' is quite stressful. Despite this, I was usually willing to taste various foods and drinks that came my way. In that, I've sampled well over 100 beers over the years – and have come to the conclusion that I hate beer(with the exception of the fruity Lambics).

I asked my sister, who loves beer, how she got past the bitterness and the foul taste of her preferred beverage. She told me that you drink it quickly, until you learn to associate that dreadful bottle of a skunk's ass soaked in battery acid with the warm and happy feeling that comes with imbibing. My sole attempt at following her advice lead me down the road to heaves.

I'm not interested in intoxication, no matter the drug involved. Never have been. It has never looked like much fun – though I would take getting drunk hands down over being on the receiving end of some prison sex(then again, maybe getting drunk was the first step in the whole prison sex escapade). And as I don't like the taste of alcoholic beverages, there was little point for me in drinking them.

So it goes. There it all is. Another shade of the bizarre sketch that is my character. Thank you anonymous blog for allowing me to share. Well, semi-anonymous, as like a narcissistic douche I tend to share these ramblings on the facebooks.

Well, earlier this autumn, or late summer, I decided to add alcohol to my diet. A friend asked why the change, and I've been thinking about that. But when you make a life change like this, after making opposition to that behavior a pillar of your being and how you present yourself to the world. More than one of my friends has expressed confusion and curiosity.

Most have just said “About fucking time you dick.”

We all have epiphanies at times, and change our minds when new evidence comes along. I try to remain somewhat open minded to new ideas. Mine came with a book. Though I do like to say that the new job has driven me to drink.

Over this summer I discovered Michael Pollan's book Cooked. I've not read anything else by him, but I've heard of some of his other works. Thanks NPR Science Friday! It was an all around interesting book that left me wanting to sample first-hand some of the experiences that Pollan wrote about. Sure, it was a bit heavy-handed and preachy at times, but damn do I want to try some of that southern slow-cooked whole hog BBQ. And the bread, oh that fresh-baked sourdough sounded so good! And just about everything else he wrote about.

The last section was where he finally touched on fermentation. First he stepped in lightly with the kraut and kimchi, before moving onto something that was definitely more a passion – mead and beer. Cool, I guess. Yawn. Oh, wait, what's this? The actual physical benefits that alcohol bestows? Not super powers that arrive with perceived invulnerability, nor the social lubricant aspect that comes with the liquid courage

No, according to Pollan moderate consumption of alcohol is just healthy for humans. Now you've my attention sir. Keep going.

I have no moral or ethical reason against drinking, as I stated previously. So I have nothing standing in the way of my starting, beyond my general disinterest. No reason to, no reason not to. I chose not to. This was less expensive.

Well, now my interest has been piqued and my decision made. Though, as with most decisions, sometimes it takes me a while to act. I finished Cooked back in June – and didn't crack my first bottle of booze until late August. I hate beer, so I really needed to find something that I would actually enjoy drinking.

I wanted to start out slowly, at home, until I had a good grasp of what would happen when I added alcohol into my system. As dull as that sounds. Mostly, I was worried that suddenly feeling dizzy or what-have-you, while out in public, would trigger an anxiety attack. Years of living with Anxiety has made me hyper aware of myself. To the point of paranoia. Harmless changes can bring on an attack if I fixate. I've largely learned to ignore these nuisances, and just keep going, but that doesn't help when throwing in unknown factors.

My first hope was Sprecher's Hard RootBeer. A rootbeer with added bourbon. So you can feel like an adult while you drink your definitively kid's beverage. I love Sprecher's products. Sprecher is a brewery that has expanded into a delicious array of sodas. They make their ginger ale with real ginger, and their root beer with honey. If you can lay your hands on some, do. The SHRB seemed liked a good way to just jump in and explore.

Sadly, after a month of searching, and several false starts, I have discovered that the SHRB has yet to make make it to my locality. At least, none of the specialty stores I contacted seem to be able to lay their hands on it.

Fekk.

Angry Orchard released a cinnamon flavored hard cider called Cinnful Apple. This is their seasonal offering for the autumn. A friend of mine posted about it on ye olde timey facebook(that Cinnful Apple existed, and that he intended to try it). This led to ephinay number 2. I love apples, and eat them often. I love to try different varieties (Braeburns are my favorite to date, but Sweet Tango and Jonagolds are close competitors).

Cider! Why didn't I think of that before?  I visited Angry Orchard's website, and I admit that I found their branding appealing.  That is to say, I liked what they were trying to convey with the names and accompanying art.  Really though, at 5% alcohol content, you will neither be scary nor badassed by drinking their product.  But who cares?  I'm scary and badassed enough dead sober!  Cue the laugh track!

I could even buy it at my local big-box by the case! Did someone say variety pack? Angry Orchard did! Perfect. I get to try four different elixirs. The first one I cracked open was the Cinnful Apple. I love cinnamon as much as much as I love apples. I was not disappointed by the experience. That was the high point.

For that first week, I tried a new flavor every night as I ate dinner. So many people like to drink wine and beer with their meals. Many of them claim that the flavor experiences are enhanced by the complex interplays between the various chemicals. This might be true. Mostly I discovered that I didn't care for either the Traditional Dry nor the Ginger varieties of Angry Orchard. Crisp was pleasant enough.

Wasting food is one of the few activities that I consider a 'mortal sin'. Gluttony is disgusting, but acceptable. But damn it, if your fat ass is taking a third helping of pie, your fat ass better choke that shit down. I didn't care for about half of that variety pack, but I drank it all. There are sober children in China damn it.

Well, since then I've been trying more brands. Woodchuck. McKenzies. As well as local varieties when I can locate them.  This last has been a challenge, almost as great as picking up the SHRB.

I found this out while at a friend's. She was having an autumn themed feast and I decided to pick up some ciders as my contribution. Woodchuck's Fall, and the aforementioned Cinnful apple. I had one of each. My reaction of Woodchuck's Fall, is that they've taken a potpourri shop and distilled its essence. Then they took that essence and used it to ruin cider. “It tastes like a candle!” was my first thought, as I rebelled against the flowery sweetness.

Here is where cleansed the pallet with a couple bottles of the Cinnful as I waited for our meal.

It appears that I have an alcohol tolerance that is on par with that of a 11 year old girl from a strict family of 4^th generation Mormons.

I already knew that I didn't much care for the aftertaste of alcohol. The sweetness of some of the cider helps to mask this. I have also confirmed that I don't really care for the vertigo sensation that comes with drinking. I always suspected that I wouldn't. After a bottle on an empty stomach, my sense of balance feels... a bit wonky. There's no stumbling around like a caricature, and the room doesn't quite spin. But everything seems to slid back and forth, like it wants to get started.

While this was happening, my muscles would hurt. Starting with my stomach and then working down to my legs. After the first experience I thought that this might be a coincidence, but it seems a rather regular occurrence. The internet states that Alcohol is a muscle relaxer and goes on to suggest that the pain comes from my muscles being tense.

Finally there was the sense of wellbeing, or happiness. You just feel good, and I can really see the appeal of drinking, especially after a shitty day(I have since cracked a bottle when I get home to relax on a number of occasions – yep, I've become a fauxhipster, watered-down version of that guy).

I look forward to the new experiences that this path will illuminate for me.  I've since decided that my future homestead will need an orchard.