Hugo the Restaurant Dog at Oven and Shaker

Hey, everyone! Before I start the post, I wanted to thank everyone who's followed me in the past few days. Coming from other blogging endeavors, getting two followers in a day - which happened this morning - is very exciting for me, as well as getting one yesterday and the day before that. I am very pleased with where my blog is going based on these numbers, and it's full speed ahead!
I'm reporting "live" from Beaverton, Oregon at a very nice inn. We drove into Portland after a few hours of the cross-state culture-shock getting-over, walking around for some time before finding a kissing dog-friendly restaurant by the name of Oven and Shaker.

Hint: Fried Chickpeas Make Good Dog Treats

We sat outside with my dog sitting on the bench opposite to mine. He gleefully distracted the people at the table behind him and all the wait staff who passed. In the meantime, I had a very nice non-alcoholic drink that was some sort of grapefruit juice with a wedge of starfruit. (The starfruit was very good, I have to say. Haven't had very much exotic fruit past jackfruit and durian since my trip to Bali in the second grade.)

Headless person on the right. Photo Editing Gold.

Then, there was the picture that I wanted to take. Sitting a few tables away from us was a man alone with a small alcoholic drink (margarita?) and a thick book. He sat there, hand in his short-trimmed dreads and then on the table or turning a page. Otherwise, he was pouring more water for himself, having gotten three-quarters of the way to the bottom of the bottle by the time I noticed halfway into my pizza.  He sat there, reading and twirling the plant-holder for longer than we had been seated, I noticed, until I was popping the last few fried chickpeas into my mouth. Onto the platform walked a girl whose long hair was braided into one very long strand. I only saw the back of her head, but the man reading had forgotten to mark his page as he gestured for her to sit. I rejoiced in that his loneliness had been broken. I can't imagine the shame and sadness of going to a restaurant so formal as this one (Not so formal, but not a Starbucks) without someone to spend time with. My heart goes out to this man and my curiosity in the meantime will wander towards his book.

Night 1 of Portland was pretty good! Catch you all tomorrow.

Ruby