Slightly Off Center

Sunday was Denise's birthday, so I took the day off from most of my pottery responsibilities to celebrate with her. Baked a cake, of course, had a nice lunch--I made spinach/mushroom/Swiss cheese omelets, along with potatoes fried in bacon fat.

After lunch, we worked on book projects for a bit, then went down to Cascades Raptor Center to visit the birds. We've been supporting members for a number of years, so had free admission passes. We took along Denise's walker, so she'd have a seat to rest on when needed, and it's a good thing we did. That place is all up and downhill, gravel pathways. The parking lot was full when we arrived, so I let Denise out and parked at the Ridgeline Trail lot across the road. Should have unloaded the walker too; carrying it up their steep driveway was a challenge.

They've got an amazing variety of raptors--hawk owls, screech owls, barn and barred and snowy owls. Kestrels and Peregrine, Saker, Aplomado and Prairie falcons. Red-tail hawks, Coopers hawks, Ferruginous and Swainsons as well. And eagles--Bald and Golden--it's an amazing place.

I took my sketchbook and watercolor kit, though most of the subjects were too skittish or two far away to allow a decent look. I did get a nice drawing of Hans, their European eagle-owl, who is apparently a ham for the camera, according to the docent I talked to, and Lacey, the turkey vulture, a friendly and engaging birdie. We left around 4 pm, went home and rested up a bit before supper.

When we go out to eat, we usually default toward ethic places, small and family-owned for preference, but every now and then Denise's suburban roots will show, and she'll want to celebrate with steak. We'd planned to go to Kennedy's down by 5th Street Market, but when I checked their website, they didn't have any reservations available before 8 pm. Yelp! said the second best steakhouse in the area was George and Violet's, in Springfield, so I gave them a call. No problem with reservations, 6:30 was fine, and away we went.

It's a little place on Main Street, dark and comfortable. Menu was an eclectic blend of steakhouse and Asian fusion--one of the appetizers was Wagyu crudo. The entreés included a $50 New York Strip and a $60 Ribeye, but also included something called a Teres Major, which I'd never heard of before, at a friendlier price. Connor, the server said it was a lean, tender cut, not fatty, but not tough, like a miniature tenderloin. (I later looked it up; it's under the shoulder blades, used to be a butcher's cut before the rest of the world discovered it.) So we each ordered that, along with a Caesar salad.

Dinner was delicious, the salad surprisingly tasty from a drizzle of honey and sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds. The steak came with a yummy pepper sauce, the potatoes with chive oil sour cream. Portions were just the perfect size; we would have had room for dessert, had there not been cake and ice cream waiting at home. Finished supper at 7:45, perfect timing to stop by Club Mud on the way home to read the meter and light the kiln.

There's a wren in the blackberry brambles behind my studio,  singing his little heart out, been there for several weeks. Flocks of robins have been populating trees around the neighborhood,  and the waxwings came through on their annual migration earlier this week. Just yesterday, I saw a chickadee at the seed feeder, the first since last fall.


Good to have everyone back.