Notes from a morning in Portland, Oregon, during which I continue to be perplexed about the fact that people make sporrans — Scottish manbags/kilt accessories — out of animal heads, after a visit to the Kilt and Thistle Shoppe in Salem. The next day at the Fresh Pot coffeehouse in Portland, I scroll down the […]
Tag Archives | Salem
Stoaters
I’ve been working away on The Scottish Ambassador project for three years now. I’m so close to done – just a few more trips to take. I’ve still got to learn Gaelic in Salt Lake City, bagpipe lessons await in New Jersey and I still have to meet my monster, Nessie (in lesser known rollercoaster […]
Extraordinary
Still at the Kilt and Thistle Shoppe in Salem, Oregon, I search for my tartan. William is a man who knows his tartans and is happy to show me my colours on an aged monitor similar to the one I first played Donkey Kong on. We scroll through the 5000 tartans contained in the database […]
The Tartan Radar
…in which I continue my quest to become 100% Scottish by venturing into a Scottish Shoppe in Salem, Oregon My pace slows as I register the wail of bagpipes filling the synthetically bright, subterranean-level shoppe with their insistent drone. I am instantly sobered by their sound and assailed with sudden doubts about my ability to […]
Additional “Additional Badgers”
Additional Badgers… part 2 Being a relatively new resident of North America, amusing beasties such as raccoons and skunks still have me pointing and exclaiming with delight. I am still not 100% sure of appropriate creature encounter behaviour. I think I’ve got the basics of bear etiquette down – it’s all in the claws, apparently […]
Additional Badgers
Driving toward Salem, we seem to be heading straight into a rain cloud. It looms forbiddingly on the horizon. This Salem, an un-witchy one, is the capital of Oregon, home to a population of 140,000, a stately university campus and dozens of imposing government buildings. It also boasts an impressive tally of no less than […]
Tartanry
Is Scotland the only country that does not force its Catholic schoolgirls to don tartan? We got to wear bouffant light blue taffeta frocks and straw hats at my elementary/primary school, though, so we didn’t get off… Scot-free. In high school/secondary we wore a yawn of grey items, stripy green and yellow ties and green […]
