Bonny Portland

Mother Nature must have mixed up the dates. Felt more like March 21st than February 21st today. Here in Portland, it was sunny, warm and just plain beautiful.

After I tended to my worm herd: added a tier, bedding and a little food. Olivia and I started the early afternoon with a bit of gardening. She unpacked and moved our weatherized hydrangea plants back to the front door and I planted some flowers that would make it in the early warm weather. I'm especially interested to see how the hollyhocks do. They were a favorite of my grandma Nellie and I could use something that will grow in some hard soil.

I was inspired so I demanded that we also take the grill out of the garage and get some steaks on. Haven't seen bone-in steaks at the regular store recently so we made a special trip to Laurelhurst market for their steak selection. A bit pricey but we ended up with 2 T-bones just under 2 pounds each. A great meal, check out the pics. I hear its snowing in some parts of the country....

Started the late afternoon by going to an informational session about a city job I'm going to apply for. I'm a great candidate, but we'll see if I even get an interview... keep you posted.

Was pretty excited about how well the information session went so I scooped up Olivia and we went down to Ringside (Downtown location) for Steaks. It's an old fashioned steakhouse with leather handles on the door, lots of wood, a fireplace.. classic. Lots of nationwide "Top 10" steak awards. They're known for their onion rings so we got the "half" order that was enough for 2 people.. or 5.

Olivia got a Porterhouse, I went with the Bone-In Ribeye. When given a choice, always get the bone. It helps make a tastier steak. I ordered rare with no butter and it came out great. Olivia got the normal style in a medium rare.. and was suprised when she didn't like it. (She eats rare meat). They quickly prepared another, in rare, and now she doesn't have steak doneness ordering priveledges.

We also got a great bottle of Oregon's own Pinot Noir off the orphaned list. (clearance). VERY nice bottle of wine. it was an older 2004, so I didnt really want to memorize it since it could be expensive to find more.