A Quest for Immortality

1) My TG cheesecake 2) Egyptian Art 3) The Wright's in hieroglyphics 4) At the Dragon Fly We woke somewhere close to 7:30am again. I got busy immediately with making coffee, my exercises, and then some TV. It was raining again this morning and so that meant that I’d be running in the rain. It was coming down in varying degrees. Even though it was raining, I enjoyed the run in the rain. Something about overcoming the elements. There was plenty of company on the river trail this morning too. I figure most of them were holiday visitors like me. I was back at Glenn’s before 10am. Our plan today would be a little more relaxed. We planned a trip into Portland’s downtown to visit t he Portland Museum of Art, and more specifically to see the Egyptian Exhibit – The Quest for Immortality. After the museum visit, the plan called for Museum after hours with a few of Glenn’s close friends. In between, I was sure, we’d do lunch at a local pub or restaurant. Mindy and Glenn had breakfast underway when I returned fro my run. I jumped in the shower to warm my sweaty, rain chilled body. I enjoyed sausage and scrambled eggs topped with cheese. For the next two hours before heading to Portland, I made the holiday cheesecake. Glenn doesn’t have an electric mixer, and I didn’t have my official l recipe. However, I have made so many cheesecakes over the years I knew I could wing it. I had to be creative with t he mixing since I hadn’t an electric mixer. Like always, I overcame the minor barrier. My cheesecake was done by 12:40pm PT. I had 20 minutes o t tinker before leaving. I played guitar. At 1pm sharp we departed for downtown Portland. Traffic was quite heavy heading over the Columbia River towards town, but it always is on this day. Twenty-five minutes later we were parking in Portland. It was raining pretty hard once again. We sucked it up and took it in stride. We were only two or three blocks form the museum. Finally inside we purchased our tickets. Admission was $20 per person. We each grabbed ourselves portable audio guides to learn as much as possible about the pieces. The pieces were as old as 1500 B.C. and as new as about 500 B.C. The exhibit was well named. The Egyptians were hell bent on finding their way to the blessed afterlife after dying in the flesh. Much like the rest of antiquity, they believed in an underworld where life closely resembled life on earth as we know it but with perfection. However, to attain this status one had to prepare themselves according to their strict customs. The adorned their tombs with many of their favorite earthly relics in hopes of using them in the afterlife. One notable tidbit that I pulled away from the experience was that many Egyptians were in poor health, missing their teeth, and somewhat homely looking. As their bodies were prepared for the afterlife, mummified, and stowed in a sarcophagus, they were made to look beautiful as they might be in the afterlife. This is the reason that the Egyptian burial masks of gold presented an almost flawless looking specimen.. The exhibit had mummies from 3000 years ago complete with coffins and sarcophagi. Another little fact was that they placed covers made of gold over their fingers and toes. Gold was thought to be the metal of the Gods. They were a very spiritual people. We left the museum at close to 4pm PT. We sought a place to get some food and drink that wasn’t packed beyond capacity. That proved difficult. Finally, at our third stop, we found a place - McMenamin’s Market Street Pub. Mindy ordered a Terminator Stout, me a Kris Kringle, and Glenn had a … I forget. I ordered three appetizers; hummus, wings, and mini-burgers. Everything tasted especially good, both the beer and the food. We hung at the pub for three hours! I had a few beers. Mindy stopped after one beer and one Spanish coffee. Glenn, I think, kept up with me. We waited patiently at the pub for Tom Shepperd to call. We decided somewhere along the line to skip the after hours at the museum. Tom would call us when they were leaving, and then we’d meet up elsewhere downtown. He called around 7pm. We walked to Alexander’s which sits atop the Hilton on like the 20th floors. It provides an amazing view of the Portland nighttime skyline as well as quality local music. Sadly, we found the bar to be closed. After meeting up with Tom, Eric, Paul and Holly, we headed to Dragon Fish, a Japanese restaurant. There we ordered more beers and appetizers. By now I had about four beers in me. I was on a roll, but so were others. It’s fair to say, we raised some hell! We laughed and played for about 2 plus hours. We finally left downtown around 11pm and headed back to Glenn’s place in Vancouver. Once back we were quick to head to bed. Mindy and I talked and snuggled for a few, however, before drifting off to sleep.