This weekend, however, I actually left my apartment on both days! And, not once, not twice, but THREE separate times I left the house. Please try to contain your excitement.

Saturday's outing involved sitting on my good pal Sandi's back porch, eating coffee cake and drinking coffee (naturally) and chatting about this and that and the other thing. It was fun and relaxing and all that other good stuff!

I don't think I ever told the Innernet about my first meet-up with Scott from "I'd Rather Be Running" back in mid-June. His take is here. My take is much the same: we talked about a lot of not-so-happy things and yet it was neither depressing nor unhappy.

Yesterday we met up for lunch at Wu's Open Kitchen in Lake Grove because Scott said their pot stickers are not to be missed. Anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely adore pot stickers, and particularly those from Hunan Pearl in Lake Oswego. Scott was right: Wu's had some good dumplings, though I was not terribly impressed with the rest of their food.

My verdict: Hunan is still in 1st place on the pot sticker front; Wu's takes second. As far as Chinese food overall goes, however, I'd still put China Delight on Beaverton Hillsdale Hwy in first place. Their only downside is that their pot stickers are not nearly up to par. (They do make a mean egg roll, however!)

Anyway, I can forgive most places their culinary shortcomings if the company is good, and it was. We somehow managed to discuss crossword puzzles and blogging and Scott informed me that "MeMe" is pronounced "meem" and - alas, he is right. Check this out. Ya learn something new every day, I suppose!

After lunch we attempted to take Rennie for a walk at Tryon Creek State Park, but once I'd collected Rennie from my apartment and we drove down there it was discovered to be busier than a one-armed paper hanger, what with a live performance of... something? So rather than battle for parking we headed downtown for a walk along the waterfront.

Much hilarity ensued, as we attempted to walk at a decent pace while trying to keep Rennie from getting run over by the 40 bazillion bicyclists who seemed to think they own the darned place! (Seriously, I'm all for getting out and taking advantage of the city's streets for biking, but when there are a bunch of people strolling and walking along the esplanade on a Sunday afternoon, sharing the paths and being considerate of others should be the watchword, methinks. Many of the bikers - rather than slowing down and yielding to the pedestrians merely rang their bike bells or yelled at the walkers that they were "coming through" and then swooshed past as if those on foot were doing something wrong by simply being there. Grr...)

All told, we ended up walking about 3 miles, carrying Rennie about 1/3 of that distance. It was warm and sunny and a bit humid. (I laugh to even use that term considering that what we get here doesn't pass for anything even close to what humid is on the east coast, but by Portland standards it was muggy.) Since we'd originally planned to hike around in the forrest, neither Scott nor I had put on any sunscreen. Oops. We still managed to have a nice time - stopping at the occasional water fountain to let Rennie have a sip and chatting about various topics, from dating to spirituality (atheism versus agnosticism) to all kinds of other stuff.

Unfortunately, by the time Rennie and I got home around 4:15 I was just beat. So I laid down on the bed intending to read a bit and ended up falling asleep for about 4 hours. Errr, oops. I don't know if I'm just out of shape or if it was heat exhaustion or some combination thereof, but I did not feel good. I do have a bit of color on my face now, which is nice, but am still feeling pretty wiped out and slept poorly last night to boot.

Geez, what's wrong with me? I used to run on the waterfront in the heat several times a week with zero trouble and now? Now I can't even walk three miles without getting pooped. Sighhhhhhhhh... Guess it's a good thing I'm getting back into the swing of things! I'm hoping that, by fall, I can start running again slowly - we shall see.

Anyway, so that's truly the latest and greatest with me. How are you all?

Oh, and I almost forgot: new pictures of Miss Rennie and various photos of yours truly are now on flickr from my beach trip last weekend. I've also posted a few shots of the hummingbirds that visit me on a regular basis! (Sara: I believe I've got Anna's Hummingbirds and one or two Ruby Throats. Can't be sure - they're fast little buggers! :)