The octopus on the top of Greek Cuisina in Portland, OR.My 35th birthday was exactly a week ago, today. It started out like any other Thursday . . . going to work. I don't even think I saw my roommates in the morning. But then, around noon Jess came to work and brought me some beautiful peachy colored roses and cookies to share with the office. And it only got better from there.
My roommates and I gathered with some friends from church to go to dinner at Greek Cuisina in downtown Portland. It was really good food and even better company.
My yummy roasted lamb all rolled up in philodough with great veggies.
Kalamari is one of my favorite things! But this picture was really to gross out the other people at our table :)
Beckie and I at dinner.
Pretty flowers at our table.
Beckie, Me, and Lori.
David, Kailina, and Jess
After dinner we headed over to Rimska's Korska Koffee House. It was an interesting and fun experience, as the pics show. We were seated at this round table, one of the largest they have. We ordered desserts and hot tea or cocoa. The restaurant itself is in an old house and if you don't know what you're looking for you'll probably miss it. The decorating is eclectic and fun.
My roomies and me at Rimsky's. I'm drinking my Earl Grey and waiting for my frozen Lemon Pie, which never came :(
Our creepy rotating table . . . until we realized it has a motor we couldn't figure out why our food kept floating away.Kailina, who'd been to Rimsky's before, told us we all needed to check out the restroom.
This is the picture that greets you ask you open the door. The lady of shatolietpaper?
And this is the unsettling scene in the rest of the bathroom. Did I mention it was creepy?
And this is the funky ceiling. Not so much creepy as kind of cool.
Did I say my Frozen Lemon Pie never came? Well, actually, when we asked the waitress to remove it from the bill because I didn't get it, she was horrified!
She apologized profusely for forgetting the Birthday girl's dessert and gave it to me for free.
Here's her apology via the ticket. It originally said, "Happy middle of Winter Birthday." After she realized she forgot my dessert, she changed it to "Happy middle of the Winter Bad Waitress Birthday."And that was the end of the Thursday night festivities, but my sister Christi came over on Friday night and we celebrated again! We went to dinner at McMenamins on the Columbia and then on to the Hazell Dell Bowling Alley for Karaoke, which came highly recommended by my friend Sami. It was fun and a little crazy. As you can probably tell from the pictures, the Bowling Alley Lounge is a bit of a dive. But it was a friendly crowd of regulars that all turned their head to look at us when we walked in.
We started off the night with Christi and I singing "Total Eclipse of the Heart." And then nothing for a long time. The Karaoke guy kept trying to get us up there and finally he made all of us get up and sing a song with him. This seemed to do the trick.
Soon after the first group sing, Beckie got up and rocked Sugerland's "Baby Girl."
Then Jess knocked out the Dixie Chick's "Ready to Run."
And Christi got down to Carole King's "I Feel the Earth Move."
Beckie and our friend Beth perusing the Karaoke books.
Beth (who was a voice major in college) wowed us all with "God Bless the USA" . . . way better than the girl on American Idol!
Me singing Carly Simon's "You're so Vain" . . . who knew there's a line in that song that says "you're with some underworld spy". What?
And my birthday weekend continued when Christi and I flew out for Las Vegas the next day . . . but that is a subject for another blog post :)
