My favorite place...

When I moved to Portland, I bounced around for a while trying to figure this city out. It wasn't like Salt Lake or New York, but sort-of a weird combination:

• Like New York, one of the first days I was here, I watched a group of junkies (or a diabetics club) shooting up out in the open.
• People didn't seem to like to walk here.
• It was DIRTY.

• Like SLC, the mix of uptight people and punks made me feel at home.
• There were a lot of independent bookstores and coffee.
• The scenery was amazing.

Unlike NY, I could afford my apartment. Unlike NY, nobody seemed to be SO intent on being cool, going to the right school or buying the right shoes. Unlike SLC, nobody said anything that invoked God, scriptures or the lord to me without raising an eyebrow to invite me in on the joke. (For a week at least - my first job here was bizarrely populated with Mormons). Unlike SLC, I never just randomly ran into people I knew - EVER. (This is still true). Moving to a new city, even one in the same country, even one sort-of the same size as the one you grew up in, is disorienting. Everything you know isn't the same. All your comfortable places, the sights and behaviors you are used to - all gone. It's exciting, but also...hard to find ways to comfort yourself. Then I found this place:

The Tao of Tea is this amazing, cozy (possibly pretentious) teahouse. Jamie & I had many dates there pre-babies. (And pre-Jamie, I had a preposterous number of first dates there).

They also have the fancy-schmancy-disney version at the local Classical Chinese Gardens, but the main house, the shabby one with too few tables, is my secret Portland-home-away-from-home.