Day: March 9, 2023

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Another Day, Another Attempt To Visit The Bookstore, Another Sign On The Door

It took harnessing all the lightning bolt power of my supercharged Bow Tie o’ the Day, but we did finally get inside the famous Powell’s City of Books—the planet’s largest new/used bookstore. Along with seeing Bruce Springsteen in concert, Powell’s was why we chose to visit Portland in the first place, especially at this time of year. The day after we got to Powell’s and the place was closed because of the weather, we were back and the doors were open to us. For what seemed like a minute anyway. We happened to get there at around 4 PM. We would have hours to explore the books! But nope! The sign on the door told us they were closing at 5 PM, so their valued employees could get home safely in the icy weather. YAY for them—both Powell’s management and staff. NOT-YAY for us—book-lovin’ visitors from out of state. Once inside, Suzanne went one direction. I went another. I followed my Powell’s fold-out map to the poetry section, and by the time the announcement came at a bit before 5 to herd us customers into the check-out line and out the front door, I hadn’t even begun to scan the highest shelves of poetry. In the slim sliver of time we were allowed in the bookstore, we did manage to find a few books we wanted, so we didn’t leave empty-handed. However, I know we didn’t come close to having the kind of authentic Powell’s experience we would have had if that dastardly snow storm hadn’t visited the city the same week we did. I suppose that’s a good excuse to vacay in Portland again sometime—when Portland is more Portland-y, and Powell’s is more Powell’s-y. And when we don’t have to buy a hunting license, buckshot, and a shotgun in order to procure our own food. Yeah, that’s it. It’s an excuse for a do-over, a Mulligan. When the current Portland aftertaste of this less-than-nowhere-resembling-a-perfect trip is out of my mouth, I’ll get right on that.

FYI I’ll wrap up our Portland experience in tomorrow’s two posts. You’ll hear about our inadvertent, after-dark trip to the zoo when it was closed, and you’ll finally hear how the Bruce concert went. I will be using a plethora of superlatives to describe The Boss, so bring your thesauri to read TIE O’ THE DAY.

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Hunting For Food In Icy Portland

Orange Tie o’ the Day goes to this pizza builder at Pizza Slut in Portland. This guy was a gallant and trusting soul. I spent less than an hour with him, in another less than ideal vacation situation, but he is one of the characters I choose to remember about our trip. Because of the weird snowstorm of 3 days prior to the day I met him, it still wasn’t easy for us to find an open restaurant. And we couldn’t find food places that were back in the delivery business. Not even Dominoes would send food our way, so I scoured the online pickings for nearby food places which would allow me to arrange an order I could come by and pick up. It had to be close enough that I could hoof it there and back to the hotel without freezing myself to the sidewalk ice. Finally, Pizza Slut took my pick-up order online—although they were so busy that the order I put in at 8 PM on Friday could not be fulfilled until Saturday at 1:00 PM. I jumped at the opportunity for any pizza, any time.

So the next day—just a few hours before the Springsteen concert—I winterized myself the best I could at 12:30 PM and stepped onto the still-iced Portland sidewalks. I followed the directions to Pizza Slut on my phone until it said I was at my destination. I looked around to find myself at a bar called Dante’s. I was cold, so I went in to ask directions to the pizza place, and behold—in a corner of Dante’s was a dark little cubby of an area called, of course, Dante’s Pizza Slut. Clever. The pizza guy asked if he could help me, and I explained I had placed an order last night and I was there to pick it up. The guy said, “We haven’t been able to take any online orders since the storm shut down our IPads and computers. Did you pay for your order online?” I did. Dude said, “I believe you. Tell me what kind of pizza you want, and I’ll throw it in for you right now. Did you order any sodas with it?” I told him I had ordered and paid for 4 cans of Diet Coke.

While he got to work on my mysterious order, I sat in the bar around a roaring fire pit they had going. I drank one of the Diet Cokes, and then I drank another—warm and comfy as all get-out. I wished Suzanne was there with me to enjoy the fire, and the music, and the smell that promised hot pizza was on its way. When the pizza was done and my own personal pizza guy was sending me on my way, I offered to pay for my order, but he was sure they’d find my order and payment somewhere in their temporarily downed online accounts. I handed him one of my tie-o-the-day.com bracelets and told him to contact me there if he didn’t get paid for my pizza. Dang, those TO’TD bracelets come in handy! Walking back to Hotel Lucia on the ice with the pizza was a bit tricky. You see, Pizza Slut makes only one size of pizza, and it is bigly: a 30-inch crust. That’s a heavy duty pizza pie to balance while sliding on ice. But both I and the pizza made it to the hotel without falling.🍕