Weekend -- Maxine on injured reserves, Good times in Lake Oswego

We started Sunday morning with brunch at Sympatica (http://www.simpaticacatering.com/). Maxine enjoyed her smoked chicken hash with egg on top. Mine, a strawberry and banana pancakes combination was OK, but nothing to brag about. My expectations might have been too high. The chef at Friday night's restaurant, Toro Bravo, had come from here. And, the 20+ people waiting to be seated all said it was a good meal. Perhaps I ordered badly, or at least something that was too easy for them?

On Saturday, we drove down to Lake Oswego, which is around 20 minutes south of downtown Portland. It's an area we'd consider moving, if we were to come up here to stay. Turns out that their Farmer's Market day (recall that we've been enjoying the Saturday ones downtown) is Saturday. We picked up pot pies (http://www.pacificpieco.com/) and lentil soup for dinner later that night, some peanut brittle (http://www.malousbrittle.com/ never can have enough snacks), and ate some breakfast while enjoying the local band playing. One of the things that is so fascinating to us is that these are all local businesses.

The Lake O market is pretty large and we felt like we fit in. Turns out also that we could have brought Cassie. They have an area they call a doggie parking lot with individual stations, including water bowls, for you to tie up your dog while you shop.

Finally, we had dinner with our friends "G" and "V". At dinner, we mentioned that we were looking for a doctor to examine Maxine's shoulder (recall, she'd fallen off the treadmill Friday morning and had been in a *lot* of discomfort since). Turns out that our friends' neighbor is an orthopaedic surgeon -- he came by for a house call to examine Maxine!!!!! (And we all thought house calls went away in the 1960's) He thinks she might have torn her rotator cuff and is going to free some time on his schedule tomorrow for X-rays.