Opening Weekend

Yay for the Portland Saturday Market! I'm incredibly delighted to be back for the new season; I love hanging out with all of my vendor buddies and creating interesting conversations with random customers and tourists - not to mention showing my new designs! While there were a ton of new vendors, I noticed that a lot of my 'friend booths' were missing... sad. Saturday provided good weather and loads of shoppers for the opening day. Sunday turned to drizzle and rain, unfortunately, and not as many people were out and about (I don't blame them!). Overall I had a nice - though tiring - weekend and am totally stoked to have weekend plans for the rest of the year.

To celebrate the opening of the market, I went out Saturday night with a friend to an unusual coffeeshop that hadn't yet hit my radar. It's called the Rimsky-Korsakoffeehouse "home of the casually threatening atmosphere", and it's located at SE 12th and Belmont, and it is phenomenal. The place was packed and there was a lady playing the piano at the front. It's an old house with lots of small tables all jammed into one big room. One of the tables has a trick: it very, very slowly raises higher and higher so that you begin eating with the table near your lap and find it eventually at chest height. But it moves so slowly that it's hard to notice any change. Hah! We asked the waiter about this one particular table and he verified its movement duties. "There's another table that shakes; we have a button in the back kitchen that controls it," he tells us. "I'm going to head back there and hit the switch, watch that table," and he motioned to a young couple sitting innocently in the corner. Moments later we hear a loud rumbling - similar to a blender battling with ice cubes - and the couple's eyes met suddenly with a look of panic and disbelief. The table shook abruptly and distinctively, but stopped just as quickly as it had started. The couple appeared very disoriented, frozen, and concerned while my friend and I shook with laughter. It was too good to be true, really. I will certainly be back to that place many times; and not just because their main menu consists of ice cream sundaes and desserts. Oh, and make sure you check out the bathroom too; my heart jumped when I saw the interior!