What better opportunity to blog about good eats and good
times than Thanksgiving?! We’re driving home from Portland where we spent the
last week celebrating the holiday with family. If I were ranking our visit I’d
give it a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. Each and every day was perfect…filled with
the kind of good times that make lasting memories. By Wednesday afternoon we’d
already had a great visit with Maria and our pies were ready for the big day.
Thursday morning Jana arrived from L.A. and Scott drove down from Seattle with
the bird…an organic, free-range turkey raised in Sonora (about an hour from Volcano).
Funny…we drove 650 miles to have a California turkey. Preparations were
stress-free (if you’ve ever watched Verne and me in the kitchen, you’ll
understand the significance of that statement) and our traditional Thanksgiving
dinner was the best we’ve had in a long time.
Part of our Thanksgiving tradition is a visit to the mall on
Black Friday. The tradition started several years ago when Amazon would offer
Black Friday deals at midnight Thanksgiving day. Each of the girls would be
ready at their computer taking advantage of the low, low prices for CD’s and
DVD’s. Two years ago we decided to join the crowds at the mall on Black Friday.
Our strategy was to arrive very early Friday morning as the all night shoppers
left and crowds thinned. It worked. This year we threw caution to the wind and
arrived at the mall at 8 p.m. Thursday evening when the stores opened. Very bad
idea! You would not believe the number of people who bring the entire family
and do all of their Christmas shopping that night. It. Was. Crazy! And, are the
prices really that exceptional??? Let me share my experience…
I went to Macy’s to buy one item: an Artisan Kitchenaid
Mixer. It was $350, 10% off for Black Friday with a $50 manufacturer’s rebate
and I will get 10% back in January from Macy’s Thanks for Sharing Program,
bringing the price to $233.50. I stood in line for about an hour to make my
purchase all the while getting more and more irritated by the bungling sales
staff (many of them ill-trained temps) and little kids running around
unattended as their parents shopped. Friday morning Lauren suggested we check
the price at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Good idea, as it was $230 after discounts
and rebates. I thought long and hard about the $3.50 difference, but finally
decided I’d keep the mixer I bought. However, Lauren had bought an attachment
for the mixer the previous evening and the difference in price between Macy’s
and BBB was $15…worth a trip to return her original purchase to Macy’s. One of our last
errands Sunday afternoon was to do just that. Lauren made the return in record
time. However, she returned to the car where we waited with some bad/good
news…the Kitchenaid mixer was now on sale at a price $15 less than what I’d
paid Black Friday! I was out of the car and into the store for my price
adjustment! Thank goodness I didn’t return the mixer earlier, re-purchase it at
BBB, only to find Macy’s had the best deal! There are a few lessons to be
learned here: (1) Black Friday deals are not what they’re cracked up to be and
(2) if you’re going to shop Black Friday, do it on-line and avoid the crowds
and all the Crazies!
The highlight Saturday was the afternoon at Cinetopia
watching Catching Fire, the second of the Hunger Games Trilogy. Doesn’t sound
too exciting? Then you haven’t experienced Cinetopia or its equivalent (and you
are obviously not a Hunger Games fan). Imagine a theater with over-sized screens, exceptional sound, and various levels of comfort and amenities: the Movie Parlor (one for families and one for adults only); the the Living Room theater with cushy chairs, loveseats, and ottomans; and, the Grand Auditorium. All of them have in-theater food and alcohol service and, surprisingly, the food is good. It’s like watching a movie on a
huge screen in your own living room...possibly more comfortable than your own living room! Quite the experience for special movies,
such as Catching Fire, or The Hobbit, which we saw last year at Cinetopia.
Our final day included a trip to OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) for the International Exhibition of Sherlock
Holmes. Lauren attended the exhibit last month and was
anxious to have Verne (another Sherlock fan) experience the fun. It was well worth attending and made all the more fun by Lauren's enthusiastic approach to it. We started with the history of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his path to creating the character, Sherlock Holmes. Next we had a crash course in the scientific approach to crime solving. Finally, we were presented with the details of a murder along with Inspector Lestrade's police report and enlisted by the one and only Sherlock Holmes to assist in analyzing the facts using forensic science (blood splatter, footprints, trajectory lines, and more). I'm happy to say we were successful and identified the true perp!
After the exhibit we took Verne to one of his favorite
restaurants, Deschutes Brewery, for lunch and a beer tasting. I think it just might have been the highlight of the weekend!
