PAgent’s Progress

At the Summerlake Park dog park.

Heh-heh-heh.

from the always entertaining Wondermark by David Malki.

What the hell ARE these things? They appeared on 6th Avenue, and are now neatly arranged, leveled, and were being laboriously cleaned this morning. Is it an art installation? Are they public restrooms? Someone out there has to know.

Update: See? I knew someone would know. Divebarwife was kind enough to point me to the Red Bull Illume project.

The Wife and I had a date on Saturday. That in itself is rare enough to be worthy of mention. However, what’s really interesting is what we did on our date.

Since I’d heard such good things about it, we zipped over to NE and had dinner at Podnah’s Pit BBQ. They had already sold out of the dry aged smoked Prime Rib, so I had the pulled pork.

This was some good stuff, folks. Lots of chunks with tasty crunchy “bark” on them. A great smoky flavor, and the rub was not too intense. The pork comes tossed with a Carolina-style vinegar sauce, but they had a more traditional tomato-based sauce on the table, and it had a nice bite! Big thumbs up on the BBQ.

But for me, a BBQ joint is only as good as the sides they serve. Several years ago, after hearing that Campbells on Powell was the best BBQ in Portland, we took the family over there to find pretty decent meat, but side dishes that were sadly lacking. That was not the case at Podnah’s.

For a salad, they serve a fairly massive wedge of iceberg lettuce with a choice of either homemade bleu cheese dressing, or homemade thousand island dressing. Both are delicious. Then they have a full complement of standard BBQ sides: cole slaw, potato salad, pinto beans, cornbread, and collard greens. I had a large slab of cornbread, with honey, and a bowl of collard greens. The greens were swimming in a satisfyingly rich broth, with hunks of smoky pork for flavor. Now THAT’S what I’m talking about.

I was surprised that on a Saturday night, the place was nearly empty. Podnah’s is some seriously good BBQ: Give them some love, people.

We left Podnah’s full and happy, and wandered next door to Tiga, our actual destination for the evening. We went to Tiga for the express purpose of listening to DJ Primativa spin her personal collection of “Exotica , Mambo, Cha Cha Cha, Easy Listening, & Shmaltz” on vinyl. It was great. DJ Primativa was a vision in a red dress, and the tunes were delightful.

Tiga itself was pretty cool, and a perfect venue for the music. It’s an intimate space, and the owner/bartender has a limited number of offerings, but they are all top-shelf.

For example, if you’re only going to have a handful of scotches, you could do worse than Glenfiddich, Laphroig, and The Balvenie. But I digress.

One of the most interesting items at Tiga was the selection of infused spirits, made in-house. I had a strawberry cooler made with strawberry-infused vodka, and a gin fizz made with rosemary-infused gin. In both cases the added flavor was delicate and subtle, making for a more interesting drink than the overly sugary alcopop you usually get.

The Wife characterized it nicely when she commented on how pleasant it was to spend an evening in a space that wasn’t smoky, and listen to interesting music that wasn’t too loud. This was the kind of date I wished I’d had when I was in my twenties.

I’ve always believed that on any given day, you can learn something new. Yesterday, for example, I learned that a neutered male dog can still express interest in, and mount, a bitch in heat.

Just guess how I learned that.

Yes, my wife had taken Gus to a dog park for bit of a morning romp, when he was approached by a flirtatious female Australian Shepherd. She was, according to my wife, a beautiful thing. She was also, according to my wife, flirting outrageously with Gus.

From what I gather, she had been in heat recently, but her owners thought she was over it. Gus disagreed with them. Several times. Since the owners were interested in breeding her, they understandably panicked, until they were reassured that Gus was shooting blanks. Even if he hadn’t been, I think Gus would have been a fine sire, as he is registered with papers and everything. I’m sure they would have had adorable purebred Australian Shepherd puppies. But I digress.

This has been the source of a great deal of bemused conversation in our house over the last 24 hours. As a pet owner, I try to keep in mind the hazards of overly anthropomorphizing your pets. They are, after all, animals. They have their own instincts, their own reasons for behaving as they do, and their own reward systems, all of which may have nothing whatsoever in common with the motives and rationales that we may ascribe to them.

Nevertheless…..way to go, Gus.

If you should see this cheerful fellow on SW Taylor, it means you are standing near the entrance of Glowing Greens, the miniature golf course in the basement of the Hilton Executive Tower. They had their grand opening just last week.

Built by the creators of 13th Door Haunted House, Glowing Greens’ course is nautical-themed and blacklight-illuminated. What does the course look like? Check it out:

While I’ve never been a huge fan of miniature golf, my son is. Maybe we’ll take the whole family some night.