Memorial Day - Parks and Powell's

Today was a most excellent day. You know the kind. You appreciate absolutely everything and all is perfect and wonderful. We slept in late, walked up to Marsee Baking for breakfast - a ginger molasses cookie and iced chai for me and a bagel sandwich with egg and cheese and regular coffee for Darr - and then stopped off at Sellwood Park to play ball with Beauty the wonder dog. All was done at a leisurely pace. When we finally returned home Darr did his homework and I researched a place we're considering going to for our first anniversary, which is a mere 27 days away, counting today. After a trip to the store, with Beauty the wonder dog in tow, we came home and made ourselves cheeseburgers for dinner. Mine was just a meat and cheddar cheese deal, minus the condiments because I think condiments are gross. Darr used blue cheese instead of cheddar and added arugula to his burger. When I questioned Darr about the addition of the green food, he explained that it made the hamburger "less dense", which makes me think, um, that's okay but weird, I guess. I've never really understood the whole 'let's stack hot meat on a bun and add condiments (sick!) and cold vegetables' thing. Hot food should be hot, cold food should be cold and never the twain shall met. In my book, foods are separate but equal. To each his/her own, I suppose. A short while later, we went to another dog park next door, played soccer with Beauty the wonder dog (using tennis balls), and read our books. There were two of the fattest dogs I have ever seen there. Their humans were of the XXL size of life, too. Coincidence? I felt bad because the one dog that was trying real hard to play like the other dogs was wheezing and drooling as it chased the ball across the grass. His/her bark sounded labored and scratchy. Another dog owner commented that the other fat dog looked like a lion and when I took a closer look I hate to say I did see a resemblance between the dog and the lion in the Chronicles of Narnia movie, and that was before the lion was shaved and looked all thin and pathetic. Anyway, the weather was fantastic - blue sky, pleasant temperature, occasional slight breeze. Oh, and the bagpipers are back! Every year around this time a team of old men bagpipers start practicing at Oaks Park for the upcoming summer of parades, etc. While we couldn't see them, the sound of their bagpipes drifted down the river and created a pleasant Scottish din over the dog park. Like most other dog owners we are usually able to identify the dogs at the park but have trouble remembering their human companions. Dogs at the park today include Henry the Whippet, Maximus the Bull Mastiff mix, Mouse the Border Collie, and several others. Finally, we took Beauty home and drove to Powell's for some much needed book purchasing. With $50 budgets, we hit the aisles and searched for the sale book treasures on the shelves. Here's what we added to our home library:

American Woman by Susan Choi (me)
Wish You Were Here by Stewart O'Nan (me)
The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank (me)
The Anxiety of Everyday Objects by Aurelie Sheehan (me)
Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris (me)
How I Became Stupid by Martin Page (me)
The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn by Janis Hallowell (me)
A Call by Ford Maddox Ford (Darr)
You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers (Darr)
The Archivist by Martha Cooley (Darr)
Herzog by Saul Bellow (Darr)
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth (Darr)