Girl, you’re my angel; you’re my darling angel
Closer than my peeps you are to me

Not quite “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,” but it gets the point across, and in a manner that I personally find hilarious.

I tell you all of this to ham-fistedly segue to the more-pressing topic of today’s blog post:

I don’t know if you know this, Internets, but I left Portland on March 24 and I not only have not been back since, but I haven’t been off of this tiny little island, except for that one miniature trip to Calais. And in approximately 53 hours, I get to go home for the first time (note: Stephan’s third U.S. trip in the same timeframe). And so:

How do I love thee, Portland? Let me count the ways
I love your gridded streets
so helpfully arranged in general numerical and/or alphabetical fashion
so right-angled
I love that your exchange rate is $1 to $1
no more Starbucks lattes that they call “tall”
when they really mean “small”
and for which they then charge me “£3.25″
when they really mean “$27 -or- firstborn”
I love your customer service
the part where you believe in it
any kind of it at all
seriously
I’m not picky
I love your standardized General American accent
with Pacific Northwest English dialect
which will never compel me to say “sorry?”
but if it ever did, would allow me to bark “what?” instead