Next stop, Voodoo Doughnuts

Sam's parents are in town. They are staying with us. This initially elicited a lot of joy on Sam's side and a sense of impending doom on my side. Not because I don't like Sam's parents. I do. They're great. But I get stressed about guests. I'm not great with the whole host, showing you around town thing. Past guests of mine have been subjected to a wide variety of activities: dirtbag bar tours (began at Sandy Hut, went on to Chopsticks, ended at my bedroom floor with a bag of Doritos), late night bike rides, weird reggae shows, OMSI, jogging through the Lloyd Center, snowboarding, music festivals, Scrabble and brunch in a snowstorm, the requisite beach trip, or just visiting my parents and sitting on their deck for five hours. Basically, whatever I happened to already have planned. But you can't do that with visiting parents. You have to do fun things that they might like to do too.

I was also worried that Sam's mother would judge my housekeeping skills. I imagined her getting on the phone with friends and family and saying things like, "Oh, you will not believe the state of her pantry. Organic white beans, only one box of cereal, and a Cup o' Noodle," or "It looks like they haven't cleaned their toilet in least two days." I want to be clear. Sam's mom isn't like that. I just tend to go for worst-case-scenario in my head.

The good news is, their visit has been great so far. Sam's mom doesn't care about our pantry. We went to Multnomah Falls, we went to my parents' place in Newberg for the THE MEETING OF THE PARENTS and it was not painful or awkward, and we're having a big dinner tonight. My only complaint is the general lack of really cool attractions/tourist traps in Portland. There are a million great things about Portland, for sure, but when a doughnut shop is considered a major attraction, I feel like we have some work to do. Where is your favorite place to take visitors? I'm open to suggestions.