jazz

Told my host tonight that I was a good packer. I was wearing his green wool blazer with the sleeves cuffed up. One tactic I have, I told him, is to wear other people's clothes at the other end! Actually, I had an anorak which I would have worn for the evening but they didn't want to make a trip to 'the house on the hill' where we are staying. The host let FFP wear a golf jacket he just bought for $80. FFP had a blazer but we were going to this jazz thing and they thought he looked better in that. He did look good in it and by the end of the evening, FFP loaned Chris $50 and paid for food after at a place on the Columbia River and was the proud owner of the jacket based on complex negotiations and much laughter!

We did have a really good time this day and night. Started by eating too much (lox, bagels, fruit, cheese) at our friends. Then we went to Portland, walked around a bit and met another friend for lunch. We had another guy with us, too. (Guy we kicked out of 'the house on the hill' so he is sleeping in the Mr. Ed cabin on friends' grounds.) Then we all walked around shopping at some cool stores. FFP bought a windsock that reminded him of Chalow and we bought some dessert plates and had them shipped back to Austin (they have old Eiffel Tower postcard images, four different) and our hostess bought tableclothes for the screen house and some tea towels and FFP bought CDs and gave them to our friends.

One CD FFP found in a weird little record store was our friend Rebecca Ryan's 'Stardust and Dreams'. Quite fun.

We drank wine and ate cheese and snacks and listened to music in the screen house in the evening. No mosquitoes except one who sneaked inside and tried to attack FFP. Then five of us went to the Vancouver Wine and Jazz festival. Still small enough to have a friendly fun and not too frenetic character. We had a ball. I saw a sculpture near the stage while we were standing around of metal Salmon (fish are VERY big here and I'd worn my fish shirt to honor that). The music hadn't started, our hosts were trying to talk their way into the patron's tent so I went to see the sculpture and take some digital pictures. Then I went to search for the guy who made it. Turned out he was a high steel metalworker who four years ago turned to art.

I bought a mask from this artist (Orlando Cox) that he made from scrap from the fish stuff (all the fish were too monumental to consider buying). One friend suggested he sign it with marker since he hadn't burned a signature in and so we went to a watercolor guy's booth and then our host bought stuff from that guy. We all had wine, we met their decorator who helped decorate the 'house on the hill'. The decorator's son was cooking fish cakes for a restaurant booth and gave us some free ones. Arturo Sandoval really rocked the place. Fun. Then we went to this place called Chart House on the Columbia and had caviar and tuna and all manner of stuff.

It was COOL outside. They had heaters on the deck. You needed your jacket!! Yes. This is a great reason to visit the Pacific Northwest in the summer.

Such a lot of eating and drinking but so much eating with the drinking that I never got a buzz!