Gifts From Over The Mountains and the Far Sea

Nancy, and her sister, Mary, returned yesterday after spending a week vacationing in Portland, Oregon. There is a third sister, Annie, the middle one, that lives out there and a glorious assortment of nieces and nephews and other various relations. Mary’s daughter and her family live there, too, and are responsible for bringing us this guy, one of my nephews:

Now this is one fine-looking young man.

Click on it and check out that smile in closeup.

No, I didn't get to go this time because, well, because somebody needs to stick around and get some work done around here. But, my ever-thoughtful wife returned with magnificent presents, which I will now catalog in detail:

1 lb of Stumptown French Roast coffee (black gold, this...perhaps the best coffee in America).

Books from one of the most wonderful places in the world, Powell's Books, in Portland. Titles include:

Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz, of which I am a fan)
The Right To Write by Julia Cameron (author of The Artist’s Way, of which I am a fan)
Zappa, A Biography by Barry Miles (about the late, great, profound, and profane Frank Zappa)

And, of course, she brought the great picture above as well as tales of exotic adventures, of sushi, of clothes and shoes, of live comedy, and coffee shops, and a prodigious amount of shopping. And she brought good reports of loved ones afar off whom we very seldom see.