micheleandtom.com

You know the couple in your life that seems to have the perfect marriage with the perfect matching careers and the perfect children who live in the perfect house? The ones that you secretly think, “Hey, if I spent 24 hours with them, I would see the chinks in their perfect armor?” Well, for us, that couple is Brian and Melody, with whom we stayed on Saturday.

I am afraid that I have to report that after spending the night, we continue to think that Melody and Brian may be the nicest damn people we’ve ever met. Compared to them, Tom and I feel positively dark! Oh, and they don’t disappoint on the little people front either — the Zs had a wonderful time with the incredible kids of the house: Iris and Lilly. The four of them ranged through the nearby woods, swinging from ivy vines and rolling around in the dirt like frolicking elephants.

And what a house! If we ever have the means, we’ll be begging Brian and Melody for some dwelling design. In the meantime, I do believe that Tom and I could sit eternally on a warm summer evening enjoying their upstairs balcony, mesmerized by the flickering lights of Portland winking through the trees.

Our favorite Oregon fair to attend is the Tillamook County Fair. We love this event because 1) the weather is usually blissfully cool; 2) the proceedings involve the whole community with livestock and 4-H exhibits; and, 3) they are the only fair in the world with Pig N Ford Races!!

“What is a Pig N Ford Race?” you ask. Good question. First, you take four Model T Ford chassis that need to be hand cranked at the front of the car in order to be started. Next, you place these automobiles on a horse track next to four pens, each of which holds three pigs.

The drivers of these Ford cars must grab a pig, start their Model T with the hand crank while holding their squirmy swine, and complete a lap of the track with said unhappy pig in their lap. When a competitor completes a loop, they must stop and turn off their car and then return the first pig to the pen. After that, they get to do the whole thing again, two more times. The first one to complete three individual porcine laps, wins (you complete a lap when the pig in hand is returned to its pen).

You can see a car in the Pig N Ford Race from Thursday in the first photo below.

The Zs also got to hold a python on stage, eat elephant ears, scramble their brains on lots of rides with their friends, pet some tortoises, hang out with the pigs, goats, chickens, cows, bunnies, and sheep, and gaze at large farm equipment. It’s good to be a kid.

As we continue our idyllic visit to the Oregon Coast, which has included more marshmallow roasting and the erection of a large tent in the backyard for gaggles of kids to stay in all night not sleeping, I realized that I had forgotten to share a singular triumph from our trip to Las Vegas — my two way parlay on the hard six that came in…twice!

For those of you not versed in craps terminology, let me illuminate you! On the craps table, the box in the middle is called the “proposition box,” which is filled with horrible bets that have a huge house edge.

Regardless of the fact that I know this, I still made a bet with two $1 chips called a two way (a bet for me and the dealers) parlay (we are both going to stack the winnings and let it ride if it hits) on the hard six (the dice will come as two 3s before a seven hits, or before a six comes the easy way, which would be 4-2 or 5-1).

Now, I made this fancy, completely long-shot wager while I was rolling the bones. And, when the two 3s hit the first time, my $1 bets became a $10 bet for me and a $10 bet for the dealers. Then, miracle of miracles, I hit the hard six two more times, which made me $180 richer. Pretty nice!

The girls have found yet another family they would rather live with than their own! This time, they wanted to stay with Robert and Lucy, old friends that recently moved to Portland, who graciously housed us for the last few days.

And really, why wouldn’t our children want to desert us after our stay?

At the Lucy and Robert B&B, the wee ones got to swim in a neighborhood pool (25 cent donation suggested), drink steamed milk with a hint of chocolate, eat massive amounts of cherries and blueberries, visit and hold a neighbor’s pet chickens (named Chloe, Daphne and Pete — but they’re all girls), attend the Hollywood Farmer’s Market (where they inhaled a fresh peach/raspberry crepe with whipped cream), lay (and squirm) in the house hammock, watch Mamma Mia!, and work on their juggling with lavender-filled stress balls.

Pictured above are the beautiful flowers that we picked up from the farmer’s market and Lucy’s lovely rocking horse, one of many wonderful pieces of her art which besprinkle their new home.

Departure checklist from Sin City:

• Room service breakfast. Check.

• Cab. Check.

• Go to Siena Deli and buy fabulous Italian sandwich to eat on the plane. Check. (This is an old-school Italian deli, grocery, and restaurant which has been a hub for the Vegas Italian-American community for years. This restaurant is the real deal with homemade bread and rolls enveloping imported meats resulting in a sandwich the likes of which you generally can’t find on the West Coast.)

• Hear horrible bankruptcy story from cab driver. Check. (He made six figures a year as a bellman at the MGM Grand, bought a big house, got laid off last year, can’t make house payments, can’t find a job, drives a taxi and effectively makes less than minimum wage since there are few fares and lots of cabs…tough. We bought him a Siena sandwich and gave him a big tip.)

• Make it to the airport really early. Check. (The joys of traveling with Tom!)

• Eat yummy Siena sandwiches on the plane and generate extreme envy amongst our fellow lunchless passengers. Check.

• Land safely in Portland, where it is still nearly as hot as Las Vegas. Check.

I have learned something new on our little foray to Vegas — Cirque du Soleil acrobats and dancers are really sexy until you put them in a burlesque show with costumes that feature cut outs for women’s breasts. Then, we just found ourselves distracted by tiny boobs and didn’t really get the context of the acrobatic routines.

For the ladies out there, the show sports lots of hunky men with padded packages, often with a zipper running over the crotch of their outfits. Sadly, feeling like we were watching a Thunder from Down Under show really subtracted from the traditional Cirque experience as well.

The show’s saving graces were the comedians, who were very funny, and the male contortionist, who grossed out the crowd, much to everyone’s delight. If you’re going to see this spectacle, and you don’t enjoy being the center of attention, avoid the first few rows in the front of the theater! Poor Tom, this was a lesson he learned the hard way, as we were interviewed (which means put on the spot) by the transvestite mistress of ceremonies and the opening act comedian (who gave us the autographed post card you see above).

All in all, the sexy Cirque show — not so erotic. Our favorite is still Ka, which is a must see if you are ever in Sin City.

“What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas.” You can’t escape that tag line. So rather than fight ’em, we decided to join ’em and are now losing money in this neon lit inferno of a city! (Don’t worry, we didn’t bring the kids, we left them at home with my awesome parents — thanks for watching them Mom and Dad.)

We are staying at the Encore, which is the smaller cloned version of the Wynn hotel. (They were offering a very nice deal on a suite with some resort credit you could use on food or spa treatments.)

The room is kind of a trip…in a good way. Pictured below is but one of the many mothballed construction projects we can view from our 53rd floor windows to the north on Las Vegas Boulevard. I also love our rotating television, which is shown below as well. When sitting on the bed, the TV is framed by the backdrop of the city, and you can swing that flat screen around 180 degrees so that when you are in the living room/office, you can watch the TV as well.

The suite also comes with a TV in the bathroom, separate shower and bath, A/C that works in 109 degree weather, a roomy safe, the crazy expensive sensored mini bar that charges you if you remove anything for 60 seconds, and teeny tiny bathrobes. (I think they all must be modeled on Steve Wynn himself, who is not strapping, by any means.) Misc. thoughts on the Encore: fabulous service, they make you pay for wireless Internet access, the casino has natural light (very disorienting), the casino doesn’t smell like an ashtray, the casino is totally dead (may be why it isn’t smokey), the hotel charges extra if you want to use the gym, and their room service is awesome.

On the latter, we ordered the following, with a straight face, on our first night: grilled asparagus, pork pot stickers, chicken satay, a greek salad with chicken, and two root beer floats! Everything was quite good — pictured below.

For some reason, my brother decided to let the girls work on his hair and buzz his beard with electric trimmers.

(Yes, more summer hijinks on the Oregon coast.)

Aside from Zelda accidentally removing too much of one of Ian’s sideburns, he came out of the experiment remarkably unscathed.

The girls, of course, had a delightful time.

In fact, Zelda was having so much fun, she didn’t want to relinquish the electric buzz cutters and got into a minor skirmish with Ian over who had a right to their possession. I’m happy to report that Ian came out on top and Zelda was not allowed to create any additional hair havoc.

While Mark’s Deli in Palermo Viejo is an institution, I implore you, if you’re in the neighborhood, skip those misbegotten sandwiches and head over to the dulce de leche/mozzarella bar instead!

(I know a lot of people love Mark’s Deli, so I waited until our little vacation out of the country to post this!)

La Salamandra is a company that produces high quality dairy products (hence the caramel/cheese theme for the restaurant) that can be found throughout stores in Argentina. Happily, they also own a little cafe and coffee shop.

This is my go-to place for a healthy delicious lunch that also features an exquisite dessert at the end! On the lunch side, they offer a variety of hot savory quiches and tarts as well as sandwiches. But, where I go crazy, is the salads. My favorite is the greens served with grilled vegetables; I order it time after time, I can’t stay from it, no matter how hard I try…I think it’s just general vegetable withdrawal that does it.

The salads feature very fresh, crispy lettuce that is actually tossed with a simple dressing (I know, don’t faint).

Mark’s Deli, by comparison, is the restaurant you want to love when you have a hankering for that good old American sandwich, but it really doesn’t deliver in terms of execution. The bread is poor, the deli meat pretty flavorless, and the usual lack of spice, condiments and sauces dooms these bread and meat creations to mundanity.

In the war of the mint lemonade bebidas — I’m afraid the winner is also La Salamandra.

Both places are overpriced and they sport a bit of a scene, but if you are looking for “over the top,” then Mark’s Deli is the place to people watch, no doubt. La Salamandra will turn your table if it’s busy, depositing your check before you ask for it, which is a bit of a shock in Argentina.

And lastly, if you need to pick up gifts for home, La Salamandra carries their dulce de leche with a convenient little cookbook in English to accompany the wickedly tasty sweet sauce.

Roasting marshmallows, making smores, catching frogs and salamanders in the pond, walking in the creek (“It’s a good way to get your feet clean, Mom!”), playing stick ball on the lawn, helping abuelo with “the pit,” shoveling gravel, burning brush, pulling stumps, stacking firewood (they are too young to split wood, but give it time…), playing in the sprinkler, helping to wash the car, going to the dump (always exciting), baking bread, making hot dog buns from scratch, borrowing DVDs from the library (“Escape from Witch Mountain is awesome, Mom.”), picking blueberries, picking raspberries, getting grass stains on every article of clothing, smashing abuela’s flowers with the soccer ball, walking to the beach…every kid should have a wonderful place to escape with their grandparents, who believe that hot chocolate with marshmallows is an appropriate way to greet each and every morning (at least when you’re under 12).